"Fun, Fun, Fun"

Talking about my trips to the library in high school led me to a smile and a favorite Beach Boys song.
First, you have to know how restricted I was as a teenager. I never spent a night at a girlfriend's house, not even Bobby's. In fact, I was probably only at her home three times during our entire time as high school friends and college roommates. I was never allowed to "hang out" with other kids and go shopping or to movies or anything. I did get to date after my junior year was over, but no more than once a week. I was not allowed to have a job until after my freshman year at UCLA, and that was only because I worked at the same place as my dad, North American Aviation, and my summer job was a part of my scholarship. We only had one car because my mom never learned to drive, so I took the bus to school and back. We did go to the beach almost every day all summer long after I got my license, because my mom liked it there. I would drive Dad to work in the morning, and drive Mom and the boys to Corona del Mar after lunch. They played, Mom read, and I body surfed and tanned. Then I drove home to leave them off and went over to pick Dad up.
It was hard to go back to no car during my senior year, so I would ask to go to the library for projects and research as often as I thought I could get away with it. My life was perfectly caught in the first few verses of "Fun, Fun, Fun" except that the car I drove was a 1964 Chevy Impala--a big boat--but the Sport version which had bucket seats and a floor-mounted automatic shift. I was a terror!! My boyfriend called me "Parnelli" for Parnelli Jones, a predecessor of Mario Andretti.

"Well, she got her daddy's car and she cruised through the hamburger stand now.
Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man now.
And with the radio blasting goes cruising just as fast as she can now.
And she'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away."

The rest of the song is pretty accurate, too, except my dad never caught on. Thanks to the library trip for this memory!