I grew up with Caren Sue Conoly, but we were separated by the nuns the minute we walked in the door holding hands.  Although we lived on the same street, Steve Ferguson became my "running buddy" in the neighborhood.  By the time Steve and I were "discovering" girls, Caren and I were more buddies than a potential "couple."

I had begun to notice a bright, petite brunette who began to catch my eye more each day.  She was always studious, seldom a cut-up, and appeared to care less about any of the guys in the class.  One day, I threw caution to the winds and sent her a note professing my love for her.  She was, to put it mildly, unreceptive of my overture and crushed my heart when she crushed the note.

So, Patty O'Brien was my first crush in more ways than one.

Patty remained studious, but she really blossomed in high school.  She joined the Drama Club and played Elwood P. Dowd's sister Veda in "Harvey."  I must say she was much better than the actress who played that role in the Jimmy Stuart movie "Harvey."  I think she lives up North now; wish I could see her again.  But John, even at 17 she was only about 5'3".  I think you two would have been an interesting looking couple.

LOL

Rosemary is 5'2" when she has an opportunity to stretch!

Michael Farrar took me on my first date.  We were in fifth grade, it was Saturday afternoon, and we went to the Wynnewood Theater to see "Peri," a Disney nature film.  His older sister accompanied us and acted as chaperone.  I remember that my father made Mike sit down in our living room and listen to a Homer & Jethro record, "The Honeymoon is Over."  Mike made me feel very special when he bought me buttered popcorn (they used to charge extra for butter), and later when I was cold, he let me wear his black leather jacket!  Mike also was the first boy who composed a poem for me.

"Please be mine, please be mine/Won't you be my Valentine?/ Please be mine, I'll feel fine/if you'll be my Valentine."  He cut a heart shape from red construction paper and wrote the poem on the heart.  *sigh* There was more, but that's all I remember.

(OK, I didn't say it was a GOOD poem.  When you're 10 it really is the thought that counts!"

Now I'm going to pore thru all your pictures on facebook to see if there is one of the two of you together!

 I only had one first crush in STC. It was 8th grade and a new girl named Joann DeFelice arrived. I never said a word to her as my parents would never entertain dating of any sort. During Valentine I went to her appt at the Cliffwood Apts and left a small box of candy on her doorstep without a card, rang the doorbell and ran all the way back to Edgefield. She never said a word to me the rest of the schoolyear and I always wonder what happened to her. BTW, never had a date until 3 months after I left home at 18.

Always thought Susie McGinnis was cute. They also lived in the Cliffwood Apts. She, her older sister Judy, a younger brother and their dad. Their mom died I believe.

When we had our 1960 local grad get together in the Bishop Art district 2/2009, Kathy "Yeager" Burden brought a pic of her and 2 other girls and it all came back.

We had a lot of girls at St. Cecilia's who were "worthy" of being any boy's girlfriend, certainly mine. I "noticed" girls from the first grade on, and I never thought any of the girls had cooties. I existed in a swirl of continuous romantic interests, few of which actually blossomed into mutually-avowed relationships. At our reunion, Cynthia Manning and I relived our third grade relationship. I bought her a bracelet(necklace) which I'm sure turned green at some point and she gave me a pencil box as tokens of our affection. Cynthia told me in the food line at the cafeteria during the reunion that her mother had put away (kept) the piece of jewelry from me.

It wasn't because I was an insensitive lout, because I was as sentimental as I could be, but, evidently, my sentiment did not extend to pencil boxes, because I had somehow not kept it; nevertheless, Cynthia and I were official third-grade sweeties.I think she has forgiven me about the pencil box.

When my older kids were going through elementary school at St.  Bernard's I kidded them when they talked about who was "going" with whom. "Where are you going? Where do you go?" I wanted to know. Of course, I knew the answer. They didn't "go" anywhere. Guess what? Neither did we in the fifties. Also, we baby boomer bunch always had at least two classes per grade. If you had the misfortune to be put in a different class from your honey, your relationship was probably doomed. I think that's what happened to Cynthia and me in the fourth grade--that, and the fact that in the late fall I moved to Denver.

In the fifth grade, for part of the year, Vicky Browder and I were "together" as kids say today. Fate (and later Vicky?) proved fickle as the Browders moved to California (Apple Valley?) and she and I exchanged passionate love letters with many X's and O's and always SWAK, but, after a few months, that ended.

When Vicky returned from California in 7th grade, she was a Valley Girl before we even knew there were such things. She used expressions like "bitching" and was entirely too advanced for me.

Patsy and I were good friends and, from about the sixth grade on, we talked endless hours on the phone at night. I would call in the early evening and we would talk usually until an adult from one of our families told us to get off the phone. I really enjoyed our friendship and our conversations. What's weird is that I have never really enjoyed talking on the phone, but I "grooved" (dating myself) on our nightly talks. Patsy was a great person--bright, a strong individual who wasn't afraid to be different, to try things which others might not. She had a paper route and became a ham radio operator at the earliest age possible. I have heard so many girls talk about what a great time they had in Girl Scouts with Patsy and her family.

Patsy kept me up on what went on with our classmates after school. I lived in the Greater Lakewood/White Rock Lake area and had to ride two city buses all the way across town, stopping downtown to transfer--twice a day, coming and going. Since I lived so far away ai wasn't able to keep up with your lives after school. Patsy filled me in. I'm grateful to her for spending so many hours talking with me. She was (and I'm sure still is) awesome.

In addition to their physical attractiveness the St. Cecilia's girls were nice, bright, and good athletes--all characteristics which made them attractive to me. Look back at our class and

remember how many really intelligent girls there were in our class. And not just intelligent, but

deep. Collectively, I don't think there's much doubt that our girls were smarter than our boys, but there is no doubt that they more mature and deeper than we boys. A number of years ago, I came across some scraps of school papers from St. C's. I read some poems by Diane Petersen

which had been published in the paper, and was amazed in retrospect how good and mature they were to have been written by a girl her age--OMG!  I hesitate to name many more individual girls who were bright for fear of leaving some off who were deserving of mention--and their number it seems was legion.