Two 16-year-old kids went to a record hop. They didn’t go to the same school. The dance must have been either church-sponsored or a joint dance between their two schools. He went to a co-ed parochial school, she went to a girl’s parochial school -they were both Irish, and Catholic.<\/p>\n
There’s a picture of the girl around that time, 16 years old, going to another dance, her face lit up with excitement, her hair swooped up in a big early 60s bouffant.<\/p>\n
The girl was at the dance only because her best friend was sneaking out of the house to meet her boyfriend, and since the girl had a car, she would act as getaway driver for her best friend. Nice to know that teenage-girl melodramas are never out of style. But once at the dance, the girl found herself being pursued by a nice boy who happened to be there.<\/p>\n
The boy had black hair, and a handsome pale face. The girl was a brunette, with freckles, and light blue eyes. They met. They danced.<\/p>\n
The boy recklessly offered to give the girl a ride home from the record-hop. After all, isn’t that what a gentleman would do? You at least need to make the offer. The girl said, “No, that’s okay, I drove here myself.” There was a long pause, and then the boy (who had actually ridden his bike to the record-hop, had no car, and had offered her a ride having no idea how he would pull it off if she had said, “Sure”) said, “Then – can I <\/i>have a ride home?”<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks later, someone was having a party. The boy was still thinking about the brunette with the freckles and the blue eyes. He, through various manipulations and teenage-boy strategies, made sure that a friend of her friend would get that girl to the party. The girl showed up. There was much flirting going on. It was all very exciting. The girl and her good friend were in one room and they were doing a dance (which, having SEEN the dance myself, looks kind of like the hustle) that they had learned for a Christmas concert at their school. It was an impromptu dance and all kinds of things were actually going on. The girl knew the boy was watching. The girl was pretending she didn’t know the boy was watching. It was all very delicious. The girl likes to pretend she is not a show-off, but she’s a Leo, she can’t help herself. The boy sat off to the side, watching the freckled blue-eyed girl do her hustle-like dance and at the end, he clapped.<\/p>\n
We all know what THAT means.<\/p>\n
Eight years later, the boy with the black hair and the pale skin and the girl with the brown hair, freckled skin, and blue eyes, were married.<\/p>\n
They now have four grown children, and one grandchild (well, two – counting the one who is on its way!)<\/p>\n
This past year, on February 18, my parents had their 41st wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n
But there’s another anniversary we always remember in our family. That’s the December 28th anniversary, which was yesterday. That was the day when two Irish-Catholic Massachusetts kids met at a record hop, and danced and laughed, and he pretended he had a car just so he could offer her a ride home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two 16-year-old kids went to a record hop. They didn’t go to the same school. The dance must have been either church-sponsored or a joint dance between their two schools. He went to a co-ed parochial school, she went to … Continue reading