The Dawnwood Years, Part 2 (The Stu Mystery)

Here are some more of my ramblings on the notes that were written in my yearbooks and the memories they evoked.

I didn’t really date in 7th grade. Note passing, eating lunch together, walking to classes together, going to someone’s party together, and coming by the house after school or on Saturday’s are what I would call dating in the 7th grade. There were a few notes written in my yearbook that gave me some clues as to who I was “dating” back then. Here’s what Alice Madonna wrote:

God made butter,
God made cheese,
God made Patty,
For Jimmy to squeeze.
Love Alice

My friend Gail Casserly also wrote a note that mentioned Jimmy. The Jimmy they were referring to is Jimmy DeGregorio. I remember he was my boyfriend in 7th grade and into 8th. He is the first boyfriend I remember having. I don’t remember how long we dated or even when or why we broke up.

But Jimmy wasn’t my first crush.

My first crush was Henry McDowell, who was two years older than me and lived next door. He was also my brother Mike’s friend. But Henry never acknowledged this crush. To him I was only Mike’s little sister who always wanted to hang around with them and one time when they let me, I wrecked Henry’s mini bike down at Wood Road Elementary School. It happened at the end of summer just a few days before school started. Going too fast + forgetting how to stop = big crash!! I remember I skinned up both knees pretty badly and was embarrassed by this on my first day of 7th grade. I looked like a little kid with skinned up knees. Ugh!

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Getting back to the notes. There was one note that indicated I had a crush on someone else besides Jimmy. It was written by Stu.

It’s too bad it didn’t last.
Oh well, good luck.
Stu

Stu who? Pantke or Silberman? Or was it another Stu? Anybody remember? The mystery continues.

Moving on to 8th grade, there wasn’t much in the way of “clues” in my yearbook so I don’t have much to tell about that year in my life. There were only 8 kids who signed my yearbook and 7 of them just signed their name. I wonder why? Did I fall in a hole or something? Tommy Accardi wrote a note on the FRONT of my book that got me in trouble with my mom. She didn’t think I should let kids “deface” the cover of my yearbook. I got mad at her for saying that. Maybe that is why I didn’t get many people to sign it. Did Mom confiscate it?

Notes picked back up again in 9th grade with 35 students and 5 teachers signing my yearbook. Stu’s name turned up in 4 of those notes and there was even the most sincere note to me written by mystery Stu himself. I'm embarrassed that I can’t remember. I wonder if Stu even remembers?

The other notes in my yearbook contained some endearing comments about me. Louise Kilcoyne called me her “science buddy,” Rich Portnoy called me his “little friend,” Al Giuffrida thought I was a “gr-8 German student,” James Feigel called me his “partner in the hall,” while others used words like sweet, kind, considerate, nice, thoughtful, loveable, a real doll, and a cute kid to describe me. Was I all that? Hmmm, but it’s nice to know others thought so.

I wish I could remember more of what happened during these impressionable years. When life is happening to you, you take it for granted. You know some of the major events in your life will pop up in your memories later on, that’s a given. It’s the minor or trivial things that don’t hang around in your brain for recall. I’m glad that these notes in my yearbooks were there to coax my brain into giving up these few memories that have been hidden for so long. I wish it had given up more.

I’ll close the Dawnwood years with another 7th grade memory that came to mind as I sat on my bed in my RV looking through my yearbook.

It was 1964. I just got the yearbook. I was sitting on my bed in my room looking through it and picking out all the cute boys in my class. At that age it was all about the boys. Little did I know then that the boy I thought was the cutest would become my husband six years later, Don Neidhart. Was that my destiny? I think so. My wonderful son, Jeffrey, and my beautiful grandchildren, Lexi, Niki and Andy, are proof of that.

To be continued . . .