There was enough connectedness between social institutions-school, community, family, church-so that a teen-ager’s life could be woven back into place and you could go on with it, get over it, even repair the damage you’d caused. In fact, all the way up through the ‘70s, Banks says, “a kid could have a scratchy patch in his life, leave home for a while, or just do something very wrong, even criminal, and still put his life back together again. In 1956 it was still possible to negotiate such things, and Banks says his adventure was “considered part of normal adolescent turbulence.” Kids and car were shipped back to New England, where police and the car’s owner were persuaded to let the families deal with their young. Then police apprehended two cool teens driving a hot car down a leafy Pasadena street. For three months Banks’ mother didn’t know if he was dead or alive. Banks and a friend stole a car in their hometown of Barnstead, N.H., and never looked back.
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