It was time to eat our lunch and I thought it was the neatest thing for Jean's mom and mine to hook up. Needless to say I was thrilled, but when it came to eating, I ate with the guys. After lunch our groups stayed together, but perhaps our attraction or curiosity for each other wore off a bit. Or maybe it was now the forced closeness under the watchfulness of our parents.

Yet, we still had one eye on the other. In the afternoon, Mr. Jankawitz was walking around by the water of the Chesapeake Bay and our groups came over to him. He was getting ready to photograph a cannon's plaque.

If you asked me, my dad had the coolest camera, a Kodak Pony. I wasn't allowed near it, its viewfinder was a lot clearer and it had knobs that you can adjust; he never had the patience to go over them. What made it even cooler is it had to be a great camera as it traveled to Antarctica with him and even Sir Edmund Hillary allowed himself to be photographed.

Mr. Jankawitz, had a 35mm SLR camera and turned this and that and was able to look through the lens. He kept it simply and said that he can check out what the light is doing and make adjustments. I noticed that all of the students were paying attention to him, including Jean who was standing on the opposite side of the camera.

I guess it was my attention deficit that spotted this and realizing that I might have a decent second shot of her; I immediately pointed my camera at Jean's head and clicked the shutter. Damn if in the last possible second, she pulled her head away and covered her face. After that one, I think she preferred standing behind me.

We toured the State House which was neat, as we had people from the legislature or someone who worked at the Governor's office that would stop and talk to us. We then went upstairs to the Rotunda, which one could view the area below or walk around and see the plaques and awards that Maryland has received.

One display in particular caught my eye, during the Apollo 11 and 17 missions, they carried the flags of countries and states and President Nixon, had gifted them back, along with a sample of the rocks that were collected on the moon.

This had me totally fascinated for two reasons: The first was that I remembered my grandmother pulling me in from outside play in order to watch the Apollo rockets take off and seeing them in real time, landing and walking on the moon. I remembering driving my grandmother half-crazy with my insistence to the question, "Why do they keep putting the beeps in there?"

She finally replied, "Well, obviously NASA wants them in there for whatever reason. Just listen to what they say, please."

The second reason was that I was an explorer myself and had a collection of rocks, insects and fungi; I was always pushing the limits of boundaries myself with my friends. In my quest for exploration, most of my friends ended up getting sick on me so we'd have to turn back. My older friend was just as gung ho as me and both of us pushed the limits. A couple of years later we decided to walk to the bay, via Double Rock Park's stream called, "Stemmer's Run." I know we got several miles out when a property owner stopped us and inquired. He told us that our plans are ridiculous and to turn back. I assured him that we knew that property lines end halfway through the stream and then my friend and I jumped to the other side of the stream. We abandoned our plans when he yelled, "Don't piss me off!" and racked his shotgun.

The moon rocks were on a display stand and after admiring and studying them for a few minutes, I wanted to share them with Jean. "Jean... Hey, Jean! Jean... Jean? Come here! I want to show you something!" She just looked at me, "No Jean! I really want you to see this."

Jean's mother chimed in, "Jean, go see what Mike wants to show you... Go ahead, everything's alright... Go ahead." It was obvious that Jean wasn't a happy camper, but walked over. I wanted her at my side, but I ended up slowly chasing her around the display several times.

I finally got her to the front of the display and I was on the opposite end and yelled, "Stop!" Jean, check these out." But Jean only looked at me. "No Jean, check these out!" as I was tapping on the acrylic button that held the moon rocks. When she finally looked down, I said, "Aren't these cool, they're moon rocks." Jean was looking at me again and I tapped the rocks again, "No Jean, these are rocks that came from the moon. I think they're the neatest things."

Jean looked at me and said, "OK." and walked back to her mother. Not long after that the classes were boarding the busses for the trip back to school. Imagine at age 11, showing a favored woman the moon!