Dave Schweers’ yearbook entry says “fond of romances and Harry James.”  Harry James, the trumpet player, was not the object of romance but few people believed as strongly as Dave Schweers in the benefits of knowing and romancing the opposite sex.  Most boys admit to an interest in girls only in adolescence, and for many that is when the agony and the ecstasy begin.  

My first "girlfriend" like many others probably didn’t even know I had a thing for her. Were in kindergarten in Glen Head. (Yes I started letching really early.) It was Genie (Jeannie) Sassamen. She lived on the other side of town but by the first grade I used to walk to her house just to run around with her. She was a wild free spirit even then. My affection showed itself to me in a bizarre manner. I used to dream that I had died and was laying in some form of casket and she would come near me and ...... whatever  she did was always obscure but it felt nice. I don’t know if anything really happened but I dreamed of her a lot.

I  remember that one of our favorite school yard games was to pretend to tie several girls to a tree  and run around them screaming like Indians, waving sticks like tomahawks, and threatening to scalp them. The girls, and Jeannie especially, initiated this routine enthusiastically although I am not sure what they got out of it except the concept that whatever happened to them wasn’t their fault because they were tied up.  That theme repeated through my life, especially with the Catholic girls I pursued.

Somewhere in 2nd or 3rd grade I became aware of a beautiful, aloof young girl with a strange accent (the accent of money and position).  She had a tall, angular friend named Helen Johnson who guarded her viciously against the attempts to get near her.  Her name was Anita Hamilton and I dreamed of her for several years.  I only dreamed. I was so shy it hurt. 

 I am not sure she ever realized how infatuated I was. She should have known because I did all the right things.  She took ballet lessons in the Norway Hall in Glen Head by the railroad station. To show my interest, I and a friend used to peak in the door and watch them in their tutu's then run away. On snowy days we used to throw snowballs in the door and run.  Some time during that period she went away for a while, I think to France.  As a class project we had to write letters to her.  I wrote how I sadly waited for her to get off the bus every day, even in the rain, and I missed her terribly...... I remember there being some adult discussion about the purpleness of my prose, and I think they never sent my letter.  

The high point of this imagined  relationship was the night that I came from a Cub Scout meeting in full dress to watch her (and Helen) perform in a ballet at school.  When she had danced her part, she came into the back of the auditorium to watch the rest of the performance.  I was there roaming around in my uniform feeling dashing.  I mumbled hello and stared.  She was definitely incredibly beautiful and I have never really forgotten her. 

I remember two other occasions that I definitely dropped the ball. One was a birthday for a mutual friend in Greenvale.  I went intending to dance with her and be suave but was too tongue tied to even say hello. 

Shortly after that my family moved to Glen Cove on Hammond Rd to live in the cellar of my grandparents house.  I never knew for sure but I believe I was the cause of that move.  We were renting a house from John ( Irishman whose name escapes me at the moment whose son was a classmate.  Evidently during our roughhousing at school I had punched John Jr.  (He graduated with us) in the mouth and eye.  He walked home he was so upset.  My father dragged me  to John’s house to apologize for something I didn’t remember doing.  Our lease expired shortly thereafter and we moved.  I was still in fourth grade and had to finish out the year in Glen Head by taking a returning Catholic school bus in the morning and taking the train to Sea Cliff in the afternoon and walking home to Hammond Rd.  My parents pulled some kind of scam so they could send me to school in Sea Cliff , thank god.

I started 5th grade with Miss Ely chasing Artie Hall around the room and knowing almost no one except Peter Muttee and Artie Hall.  The next time I saw Anita was around 9th grade when Glen Head students moved to Sea Cliff High.  It was the beginning of the year and we were all wandering around the gymnasium for some reason.  I saw her looking as cool as ever and I thought maybe I still have a chance.  I went over and said hello and she was courteous as ever, and then I found out she wasn’t staying, she was going to school wherever the kids of rich influential people go.  I was heartbroken

but then there was Pat Walters, Nancy Hawkins, Carole Hincula and the real love of my life, Elizabeth Morse whose features are permanently etched in to my brain .