I NEVER REALLY FORGAVE HUMPHREY BOGART FOR IT
(…because he stole her away from me!)

Lauren Bacall was only three years older than me when she burst upon the big silver screen with her sultry looks and glamour. Attributes which immediately qualified her as an “older woman” in my hormonal teenage perspectives at the time; and thus, worthy of a most fevered crush and incredibly romantic fantasies about her.

I have to confess, however, that she had severe competition for those from a tall, green-eyed, auburn-haired, forty-something beauty, the divorced mother of a debutante girl friend at the time. So, for a while, it was nip-and-tuck about which one would eventually win out in that contest. But cougar-mama finally clinched it on the day she found her daughter and I entwined together, like two morning-glory vines, and vehemently exclaimed: “Young lady, I never want to find you with this boy like this again. If he’s anything like his father…he’s not to be trusted!” The vicissitudes of such conflicting emotional pulls and turmoil can really make teenage life a bitch at times! Shortly thereafter Lauren up and married an older guy. The kind of older guy no hunky stud-muffin can ever compete against, so I never really forgave Humphrey Bogart for it… because he stole her away from me…the dog!

Of course, since we had never really met, and because my passion for her had cooled somewhat by then, I wrote it all off as just one of those things. Besides, my debutante connection having also faded away (though the memory of her cougar-mama has never been forgotten), I had moved on to country life, enjoying the occasional country-girl that came with that, but now mostly with a mind fixated on a hotrod jalopy, a hunting-pal shepherd dog, a funky sailboat, and a somewhat love-hate relationship with a high spirited horse, whose primary mission in life seemed to be to devise as many cunning ways to kill me as possible. On top of all that, I had briefly became involved with a highly respected local moon-shining enterprise, as its primary bootlegger (thanks to my funky sailboat). It was an association which not only generated ample spending money, but seemed to offer exciting career-path potential besides.

In short, life had become way too crowded and busy, so there was no longer any room in it for kid stuff, like mooning over some movie star, even a glamorous and legendary one like Lauren Bacall (besides, since she’d married that Bogart guy…I was still pissed off about that). Still, never one to hold a grudge, I eventually forgave them both…as they went on to the acclaim of their grand careers.

Their greatest accomplishment, however, has to be how long their May-December romance endured…and that’s something that really made them both worth being called…stars

CENTURION