Ten Days to Seventy

I started my second decade going into 7th grade in New Jersey as Lynn and ended it engaged to be married and living on the other side of the country as "Serge" short for my maiden name Siergiej.

I think I need to break this down in manageable chunks. Let's start with the last years of grammar school. Major events. New baby sister, confirmation, menstruation, first trip to Arizona, first TV and first almost -new car,breaking it to Sister Claude that I wasn't going into the convent - our class trip was to the Mother house in Mendham-, getting hit by Sister Georgene with a St. Gregory's hymnal for turning around to look at the boys, walking home for lunch with Pat Denver and putting on lipstick for the walk - taking it off for our mothers - putting it back on for the walk back to school and wiping it off for the nuns. Our major challenges were finding a route back and forth to school which didn't subject us to the harassment of the "publics" , trying to stifle hysterical laughter while singing a requiem mass in Latin and finding enough sins to make up for weekly confession. We finally graduated from St. Pat's in 1953 and spent the summer strategizing how we were going to join those same "publics" at Chatham High School.

High school years should be fun and carefree as ours were. We didn't have advanced placement courses, obsessive parents, class trips to Paris or Aruba, skating rinks, one-sport wonders, drugs, metal detectors or busing (except for the township kids). We did have sock hops, bonfires, soccer championships ( no football at our school), a fantastic choir, a real after school hangout John's, vanilla cokes, slumber parties, makeout parties, Tri-Hi-Y clubs, CYO and a senior class trip on a bus to Asbury Park for the day, guys with letters in 4 sports and teachers who looked out for us.

This is when I learned to use algebra (I still use it today) drive -thanks, Jack H., smoke, drink beer out of shot glasses ( in a group with a quart of beer), put on eyebrow pencil, play field hockey, do flips across the soccer field, be the top rung of the cheerleader pyramid, tumble and dive over people and ice skate (on a pond or lake) with my tumbling partner Noel who also held me by the legs upside down over the railroad bridge where I painted Class of '57 for all to see and of course I was in and out of love at least twice a month. Best of all I was Features Editor of our school newspaper and learned to love writing. Prom and graduation were bittersweet as we all were going off to college all over the country. We were attached at the hip and had our first class reunion after 4 years in fear of losing touch after college. Best friends with Pat Denver and Diane Duchamp.

I choose the University of Arizona in Tucson for many reasons. I wanted to be a gym teacher and started out in Phys Ed.. Then came Cat Anatomy - with my very own stiff kitty to cut up and I quickly became an English major. Truth to tell, I took a lot of esoteric courses in philosphy and the humanities and majored in football games and fraternity parties. In college I learned to cook on an iron in my dorm, and live on chili dogs and buckets of delivery spaghetti. I tried my hand at fencing and modern dance. Major events ( in chronological order, not order of importance)

• Joining a sorority


• Making the cheer leading squad - our big away trip was to El Paso - no PAC 10 back then
  
• Voting in my first presidential election - JFK


• Having three roommates named Sue


• Meeting my future husband on a blind date


• Shooting a gun and wearing a pair of Levi's - both for the first time


• Discovering a beach in the mountains

I was the first person on my mother's side and the second on my father's side to have the opportunity to attend college. If I hadn't been a dippy teenager - I might have taken it more seriously and graduated with honors, instead of having so much fun and leaving with only an MRS. but 50 years later, who's keeping track?