They Had Mohair Rings, But I Had Jo Jo Gunne

"No, Spiardi. I bought myself a ring that's too big." This is how Miss S.T. sarcastically answered when I asked if her boyfriend bought her the yarn-wrapped ring she was sporting on her finger. It had never occurred to me that the fuzzy bands worn by the A-list girls began their lives as one-size-fits-all pieces of cheap metal, purchased by…

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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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