“Jim, great to see you again,” he said, pumping my hand vigorously.

 

“Yes Sir, how have you been?” I asked.

 

“Fine son, just fine,” he replied.

 

His eyes fell to the books I had in my hands. Robin was in freshman English and one of the books she was required to read was John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. I had read the book the previous year and made some notes in the margins. I brought the book as a study tool, and perhaps to maintain the basic fiction of a study date.

 

To be honest, I liked Robin a lot and just wanted to spend time with her. The summer loomed ahead, and school would not start again until late September. In between I was condemned to spend my time working in a gas station, a job I was uniquely unsuited to do well.

 

“Jim, you know that John Steinbeck is a communist?” he asked.

 

At first I thought he was kidding. In the early 1950s Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy started the hysteria that occurred after the second Red Scare and accused U.S. citizens of being communists. These accusations appealed to Midwestern Americans who used anti-communism to fight against liberals and internationalists. This hysteria took over the U.S. as a means of fighting communism without realizing that the U.S. was in danger of losing what it was fighting for, Freedom and the Constitution.

 

I had studied the McCarthy era in my American history class, and although McCarthy had been discredited in 1954, and had passed away in 1956, McCarthyism had endured. President Kennedy had only six months to live and the Election of 1964 would pit the ultra conservative Senator Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson. Johnson would go on to establish what he called The Great Society. This included most of everything the conservatives feared and correctly labeled socialism. In 1963 it was still possible to smear someone by even suggesting they were soft on Communism, and many people felt Lyndon Johnson escalated the Viet Nam war because he didn’t want to be perceived as weak in opposing the spread of world communism.

 

But John Steinbeck a communist?

 

Robin's dad did most of the talking. More than once I thought, Robin will you get down here? He went on to make some outrageous claims about Steinbeck’s ties to people who were “proven reds,” as well as other well known figures. Warming to his topic, he started in on Chief Justice Earl Warren. I didn’t want to get into an argument with him, I was after all, just glad to be dating his daughter, but on the other hand, could this be a test? I was saved when at last Robin came bouncing down the stairs with her sister Jill in tow. Jill was a younger version of Robin who I had not met. The resemblance was striking, but I knew that Jill was younger than Robin by two years.

 

“I know, we look like twins, I’m thinking of changing my hair,” Robin said quickly. Then in front of her father, she introduced me to her sister.

 

“Jill, this is my boyfriend, Jim Tomlin.”

 

I practically had to sit down. Although I had known Robin from our German class all year, we had been dating for only three weeks. Boyfriend implied a position of exclusiveness I was not aware I had achieved, but I had no time to process this new information.

 

“Ah. . . . . . . glad to meet you, Jill,” I said awkwardly.

 

“Nice to meet you too.... finally, .... Robin has been talking about you all year,” she said with a big smile.

 

“JILL!” Robin said quickly.

 

“Well you have,” Jill said demurely.

 

Somewhat exasperated, Robin said quickly, “We have to go, the library closes at 11.”

 

“Nice to meet you Jim,” Jill said and turned to walk toward the kitchen.

 

At this point Robin's dad stepped forward and shook my hand again. There were a number of things he could have said to me:

 

He didn’t say any of those things. What he did say was, “Jim, there are people who are communists who don’t even KNOW they are communists.”

 

“Ah . . . . that’s deep, sir,” I said uncomfortably.

 

“It is,” he replied gravely.

 

We walked out to the car, I opened the door for Robin, closed it after she was settled and got in on the driver’s side. Just as I was about to offer an unflattering observation about her father’s obsession with communists, she said,

 

“Isn’t my dad great?”

 

Her voice was like music. I looked at Robin and the way the porch light was highlighting her blond hair. I sold out in a heartbeat.

 

“He sure is,” I said with as much false sincerity as I could muster. I was, after all, her boyfriend.