March 17, 2019:

The first was a neighbor girl, on the stairs outside her apartment. "OWWW!", she said. "Why do boys always squeeze so hard!"

I was instantly profoundly chagrined to have hurt her.

Which was a superb life lesson. She taught me how to be soft, so that it not only didn't hurt her but she liked it. And that, let me tell you, made me happy.

It's curious that feelies were considered less advanced than kissing. I don't know that we ever did actually kiss. If we did it wasn't much. But there were a lot of feelies.