By LAMAR THAMES

It was the summer of 1958 and I had just turned 14. Elvis was in the Army, and Perry Mason and 77 Sunset Strip ruled the television airways. Jerry Lee Lewis shocked the music world with his song Great Balls of Fire and his marriage to a distant 13-year-old cousin. James Dean had died before most of us even got to know him, and my Davy Crockett coonskin cap still occupied a prominent niche on the shelf in my room. But things, as Bob Dylan said, “they were a’changing,” and a simple trip to the beach no longer meant a romp in the ocean. There were also girls to consider.

We lived in the backwoods mountains of Northwest Georgia, five miles from Tennessee’s tourist-laden Rock City, but a million miles from nowhere. It was about as far from the ocean, philosophically, as you can get. I had lived near the shore before and would do so again, but most of the people in the quaint communities of West Brow and Hinkle would live and die within a few miles of where they were born — modern recluses in a mobile society.

Some of the parents of the teenagers in our church group were aware of the trap and arranged summer trips to expose their children to other cultures and possibilities. The year before, it was a camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. In 1958, it was a trip to the beach — Jacksonville Beach, Florida, to be exact.

While I can’t say I recall a lot about Jax Beach from that visit, several things are still vivid in my mind. Girls, the wide sandy beaches, and did I say girls? I was a teenage boy and I was in love. I loved anything and everything about girls — their flashing eyes, ruby lips and hair that smelled like fresh-picked peaches. I loved the way they pranced up and down the hard-packed sand, their arms, legs and hips moving in hypnotic fashion, demanding to be noticed. And I noticed. Lord, did I notice.

The anticipation of the trip was almost too much for me. I dreamed of girls in two-piece bathing suits, glistening with suntan lotion. I loved their smooth skin, their cherry cheeks, and their rounded shoulders.

The trip from Lookout Mountain to Jacksonville Beach seemed longer than the Eisenhower Administration and our stay was shorter than the Big Bopper’s career. We rented a couple of cottages on what I remember being somewhere around First Street North, near where the pavilion used to be and not too far from a movie theater. On screen was The Robe. Being a church group, we had to go see it.

Arnold, Eddie and I slept on the unair-conditioned porch and the girls in our group slept inside. I remember a distinctive smell to the cottage, rustic and outdoorsy. The memory of that odor stayed with me a long time, and I recaptured it on the Redneck Riviera, a.k.a. Panama City, years later after I joined the Air Force. A buddy and I drove down from Montgomery, Ala., to do some girl-watching.

The hotel we stayed at was one of those funky beach rentals with seashells on the walls, fishnets hanging from the ceiling and the smell I remembered from Jax Beach.

“What’s that smell,” I asked as we entered the lobby.

“Uh, that’s mildew,” my buddy informed me.

Mildew? Huh. Even now, whenever my nostrils encounter mildew, I am reminded of that long-ago vacation and how much innocent fun a 14-year-old on a long leash can have.

Our days began early and lasted until late in the evening as we swam, ate, slept, talked to girls, slept, ate, went to bed and started the process over again. We would walk the streets at night, unafraid, and dazzled by the lights and the electricity in the air. We were on vacation, and we wanted to act like tourists, even if we didn’t have a true appreciation for what the word meant. Being naturally shy and lacking in social graces, I nonetheless screwed up my courage to talk to some of the girls we would see listening to music or dancing at the pavilion.

The pavilion was at the end of a pier, jutting into the ocean. Our group would hang around the perimeter, watching the older teenagers do the bop and having a good time; the boys with greased duck-tails hanging our over their turned-up shirt collars and the girls in pedal pushers and short-sleeve cotton blouses, looking fresh-scrubbed like Sandra Dee or Debbie Reynolds.

Music blared from kiosks along the beach, designed to attract teens with money to buy whatever they were selling. One day C.C. Rider spoke to me with its mournful, bluesy sound of unrequited love. A pretty blond also stopped to listen. She had an inviting face, and I smiled at her. Amazingly, she smiled back. My knees grew weak.

She said she was from Ohio.

I said I was from “Nufgahbuh.”

“Huh?”

“Uh, North Georgia,” I said. “You know, around Lookout Mountain and Rock City?” I didn’t want to say West Brow or Hinkle.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’ve seen those signs on the barns. See Rock City. Have you been there?”

“Sure, lots of times,” I said, surprised she was still talking to me. Her name was Sandy, not Sandra, and her father was a minister from a rural church outside Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She was wearing pink pedal pushers and a white, sleeveless blouse.

“Would you be going to the pavilion while you are here?” I asked, innocently.

“Oh, no. My father wouldn’t allow that. But I am going to the movies tonight to see The Robe. Have you seen it?”

“No,” I lied. “Maybe I’ll see you there?”

We sat in the middle of the theater, her mother and father two rows behind. I bought her a drink and a candy bar and a box of popcorn to share. Our hands touched once when we tried to reach into the popcorn box at the same time. After the refreshments, I got up enough nerve to try to hold her hand, which she had carefully placed on the armrest between us. Just as I touched her hand, however, she sneezed. She said something about the mildew in the theater affecting her allergies.

When the movie was over, I asked her how long she was staying in town.

She said they were leaving the next day, but would be back next year at the same time.

“Do you come here all the time?” she asked.

“No, this was a one-time trip,” I said.

“Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

It was a long trip back to the mountains of Northwest Georgia, and there was little to do but think about the sun and the sand and the little fair-haired girl. I promised to write, but you know I never did. That’s the way it goes with those short summertime romances.

But I did return to Jacksonville Beach — about 35 years later as the editor Shorelines, The Florida Times-Union’s community news edition for the Beaches. A wave of nostalgia swept over me on a stroll up First Street, remembering my first visit so long ago. The movie theater and the pavilion were long gone. So was the minister’s daughter from Ohio.

She had the bluest eyes . . .