Tolerance, Hairdo Envy, and Bad First Dates: Lessons Learned from Frankie & His Bride

Ah, you always remember your first time. There I was, in a dimly lit room…body tense and trembling under crisp sheets…heartbeat wild in anticipation…breaths short and shallow…spellbound by my first glimpse of something big, scary, and invasive…a spectacle that would excite me for the rest of my life: the 1935 classic, “The Bride of Frankenstein.” This cinematic masterpiece introduced me to societal rejection, unrequited love, mob mentality, and the tortured soul of the outcast. It’s the grandest monster flick of all time.

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And the Score is Love-Love: A Teenage Tennis Tale

“Where the boys are, someone waits for me,” Connie Francis once sang. And just where were they waiting in my sleepy little hometown in the slow, sweet summertime? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t at our old cracked-concrete tennis courts. But for me, it was someplace to go, and go I did – back in my pre-car, pre-cash teen years. Every night after dinner, my friend Ann and I would dress to impress and make our way up cemetery hill to the courts to see and be seen. Alas, not much came of our tennis trolloping. Once or twice a guy friend would offer us a ride home, but it was never the guy we hoped for. Weren’t we pretty enough, clever enough, or popular enough? Such thoughts would consume our high school years.

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