By Richard Mabey Jr.

Author’s note: This story is 90 percent true. I took the liberty of changing people’s names.

A boy gets one first crush. One to a customer. And, as time goes by and the boy becomes an old man, he finds himself looking back at those days of his boyhood, and he wonders about his first crush. And, all of the magic, the splendor, the wonder, the infinite joy, haunts the fiber and chambers of his heart. And, he finds himself wondering as now an old man, sitting on his front porch rocking chair, looking out to the oak tree on his front lawn, “what if?”

My first crush was Pamela Rawlings. I first saw Pamela, on the first day of Mrs. Kiick’s first grade class. The late Mrs. Kiick was the mother of the football phenomenon, the late Jimmy Kiick. When I first saw dear, sweet Pamela Rawlings, my heart began beating like a big bass drum. Whenever Pamela would get up to sharpen her pencil, at the pencil sharpener at the window of Chapel Hill School, I would quickly and purposely break the point of my pencil to justify jumping out of my desk to quickly walk to the pencil sharpener, just to be near Pamela for even a few seconds.

Within a few weeks, Pamela and I became friends. I remember all so well, pretending not to understand the difference between the letters p and q. Pamela and I sat in the back of the classroom. I would ask Pamela to help me to make the letters p and q, to be distinct from each other.

Pamela and I continued to be friends all through our years at dear old Chapel Hill School. In seventh grade, I came down with a severe case of Rheumatic Fever and pretty much missed all of seventh grade. Pamela mailed me several get-well cards. One day after school, Pamela rode with my mom and sister, Patti, to visit me when I was at the Barnert Hospital in Paterson. Now at 68, I look back and I’m just beginning to realize how deeply blessed I was to have a friend like Pamela Rawlings, during my boyhood days.

During eighth grade, they would have school dances in the drab and ugly gymnasium of Chapel Hill School. Mr. Walsh, the school’s gym teacher, would walk around the dance floor to make sure that none of the boys and girls were dancing together too closely. Mr. Smith, the math teacher, would play 45 rpms on the old record player. Mr. Smith would play Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” three or four times, during the night. I think it was his favorite song. It quickly became “our song” for Pamela and I.

In September of 1968, I learned the pain and anguish of having a broken heart. Louie Sagretti was a star player on the football team. Pamela and I were starting our sophomore year and Louie Sagretti was a senior. It broke my heart, that morning when I looked down the hallway from my locker and saw Louie talking with Pamela. Nothing needed to be said. I could see the sparkle in Pamela’s eyes as she giggled at Louie’s jokes. It took all my inward discipline not to cry, right there in the upstairs hallway of Boonton High School.

As Louie Sagretti and Pamela got closer, the close friendship between Pamela and I became distant. If all the tears that I cried over Pamela Rawlings were to be poured into a gallon jug, the jug would be overflowing.

I never liked Louie Sagretti. Many times, I told Pamela that he was no good. That he really didn’t care about her, that he was just using her. Pamela would get upset with me and tell me that I was just jealous. And, yes Pamela was right, I was painfully jealous. But, I also knew that Louie Sagretti was a low-down bum.

In the Spring of 1969, my mom and dad joined the Trailmates Chapter of the National Camping and Hikers Association. And, on one of the group’s campouts at Swartswood State Park, I met Penny Lancaster. It was love at first sight, and I was soon to forget about my heart break over Pamela Rawlings dating Louie Sagretti.

In my senior at Boonton High, Pamela and I worked together at the Shop-Rite. We would work weekdays after school and then all day on Saturdays. We often took breaks together in the upstairs break room. It was as if the good Lord gave Pamela and I the place and time to renew our friendship.

By that time, Pamela was dating Louie Sagretti and I was dating Penny Lancaster. But I remember this moment as if it was yesterday. Pamela and I had just walked down the metal stairs at the Shop-Rite. We had just punched out from our breaks. We had only a few moments to talk, before going back to work. Pamela was a cashier and I worked in the produce aisle.

There, standing alone at the time clock, Pamela and I vowed to be friends for the rest of our lives. Sadly, after high school, we gradually drifted apart. My good friends, you’ll have to take my word for me on this one. In 2017, a miracle came into my life. Through a common friend, through an Internet social page, Pamela and I became reacquainted. It was as if the odds were a million to one. I am convinced it was by Divine intervention.

Pamela and I discovered that we both lived in Florida, not all that far from each other. We talked on the telephone and talked about having lunch together. My mom became very ill and needed to be hospitalized. Then, Pamela found herself overwhelmed with packing to move to Virginia. So, sadly, we never did meet for lunch.

However, Pamela and I do keep in touch with emails. I pray for her every night. For myself, there’s a comfort in knowing that Pamela is still alive and doing well. In all so many ways, she is my spiritual sister. If she were my biological sister, I could not love her more.

For all of you of a certain age, who may wonder about a special person from your childhood, to whom you have lost touch with, I share these words with you: do not give up hope of someday becoming reacquainted with them. For miracles do happen.

Richard Mabey Jr. is a freelance writer. He can be reached at richardmabeyjr@hotmail.com. Please put on the subject line: My Life Publications.

SUGGESTED CAPTION TO ATTACHED PHOTOGRAPH:
Boonton High School, the very place where my heart sank when I first saw Pamela Rawlings and Louie Sagretti, at Pamela’s homeroom locker, talking and laughing together.