Maureen Lispi:  

Some story ideas by the prompter are: What happened to your 1st crush? To be truly happy where would I be, doing what, with whom? Life doesn't always turn out the way you expect. What's been your biggest surprise? If you could do one thing over, what would it be? My first crush was also the love of my life. We became good friends in high school and afterwards, ran into each other at Cal-Poly, Pomona. We dated a short time, but I knew by the end of the first date, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He was so nice and such a gentleman. And sexy beyond belief. It's strange because the feeling I had was of a comfortable warm feeling. I just liked being with him. I also liked who I was when I was with him and I wanted to be a better person. I was only 16 years old. We dated off and on again for awhile. He even took me home twice to meet his mom. The first time she wasn't home from work, the second, already asleep in bed. I don't know what happened, but he never asked if I would be his girl and he stopped coming around. We lost contact with each other. During this period of time, while I was only 17, my family moved to Walnut. In August I turned 18 and decided to take some classes at Mt. Sac. We ran into each other again. We had a date which I had to cancel due to a family medical emergency. I never heard from him or saw him again. Flash forward 33 years. We connected through classmates and met each other AGAIN. He's even more gorgeous than he was before. Only now he's living with a woman and he's happy. Sometimes you just don't get the fairy tale ending. Although it was extremely painful to me, I'm glad to know he has a good life. That's all I ever wanted for him. I hope he knows that. I just wish it could have been with me. The teacher I would have loved to see again was Mr. Kessler, may he rest in peace. He was so kind and caring, he just made you feel good about yourself. New flash: A few of us got together on 2-22-09 and met Mr. Roy Lindsey, our music director. We had such a nice time and are planning a larger reunion in the very near future. Those in attendance: Virginia Anderson, Susan Hunter, Linda Kiertzner, Bob Pardon and myself. The wildest thing I ever did in school: I never got caught, and a lot of people don't even know I did it, but I was on the roof and hit Mr. Cluff in the head with a water balloon. He was such a bigot. I once got into trouble for calling a teacher a f---ing B in front of the whole class. She said, "You're out of here!" I replied, "You've got that f----ing right!" Of course it became a very large issue, with the teacher, dean, principle, my parents....They wanted to expel me. My dad finally had enough and said, "I met the teacher, she is a f----ing B." Way to go dad. It was one of the first times I remember him standing up for me. I hope my old friends remember me as someone who was easy to talk to. I always had a lot of people come talk to me. Now that I think on it, quite a few were boys. (Bob Pardon, Jeff Migdal, Paul Tuba, [he still owes me a dollar for lunch] Bob Rivas, Bob Messing, Ken Crotoue?....) It was kinda cool. I felt like I was one of the guys. I got to hear a lot of their troubles and how they thought about things. I learned a lot about men at an early age through them. My parents said there always seemed to be a crowd of some sort at the house. I remember Bob Pardon once ran away from home and knew he could go to our house. We always seemed to take in the strays. Animals and people. Some of my best friends in school were Alexis Vasilchak, Jessica Doss, Jackie Thomas and Jill Kanoa. Man we could talk! Today Lexie and I call each other just to say hi, 2 1/2 hours later we are finally ready to hang up. There were quite a few other girls I got close to when the Viking Choir and Madrigals went on a road trip, singing along the way. (Too many to name.) The weirdest job I ever had, was as a gas station attendant when I was 15. I not only pumped gas, I checked oil, added coolant, checked tires, rotate and balance tires, whatever you had to do, including fixing flats. Yes, I could work on cars. I had a 1965 Mustang, 289 bored out to a 302. My dad made me do a lot of the repairs myself. Change out the distributor, change valve cover gaskets, flush the radiator. I had to understand the electrical process of how the spark from the ignition fired to the spark plugs, which ignites the compression stroke (oh my God) before I was allowed to turn the key.. He taught me to know enough to do it myself, or to not get screwed if I had to take it in for repairs. A couple of things happened when I was 19, but only those closest to me will ever get to know what they were. I was horribly ill in my 20's. I had four major surgeries and was in the hospital about 7 times between the ages of 20-29. As a consequence, I was never able to have children. It was very difficult to be around when the rest of my family was starting to have their own, but there are now so many kids, I'm glad I was there. And those kids are having their own kids. When I had my 1st surgery, I got really lousy care. I had 6 blood transfusions, but the needle slipped after #4 and the blood infiltrated into the surrounding tissue, not my vein. My arm was swollen 8 times it's normal size. I almost had it amputated due to nerve damage. I knew I could do a better job and became a nurse. I worked at Inter-Community in Covina for many years. I was on the oncology unit for several of those years. One of my co-workers was Mrs. Skahill. (Steve Skahill's mom.) This job afforded me the finances to travel. I've been all over the U.S., and to most of the islands, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii (several times).... For some reason, never got to Europe. I always wanted to go to the beach, some where. I just returned from an 18 day trip to New England. Flew to Boston and rented a car. Drove to Rhode Island, Connetticut, Massachusettes, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Took lots of pix for my portfolio. I built a web site and have sold some of my work. Check it out & let me know what you think; photo gallery by maureen dot com (NO spaces) I'm always adding new stuff to it. Last weekend I took a hot air balloon ride in Temecula. I am also going to New Mexico in October for the world famous balloon festival. Several times during the year I take mini vacations for 4-5 days just to recharge my batteries. A road trip I once took was all the way across the United States to Montreal and back again. That trip took nearly 3 months to complete. I stopped at a lot of places I read about in school books. I heard there was something written on the 13th step of the capitol building in Denver. I went there to check it out. It says, one mile above sea level. Wherever I go, I check to see if there is a Hard Rock Cafe in the area and if so I buy a T-shirt. I have an extensive collection. If you're planning a trip, let me know. I wear a men's size medium. I did live a crazy life. You would never believe the things I've seen, done, or places I've been to. Or people I partied with. I was a disc jockey for a few years. I was also asked to sit in on recording sessions doing background vocals and playing keyboards. (I started piano lessons when I was about 4-5 years old.) I finally married at the age of 34. The man I married was the exact opposite of my true love. I married a rock star. Yes, a rock star. Trust me, the stories about rock stars are true. I've met a lot of interesting people in my life: all of Van Halen, Eddie Money, Dave Mason, Michael Jackson, Katie Couric, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fischer, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Dave Mason, Governor Pete Wilson, Governor Arnold Swartzenegger, Jimmy Hahn, James Hahn and Tom Hayden and many more celebs, I can't remember them all. If you want to know more, you'll just have to ask me. What is my biggest surprise? That I'm still going at life on my own. My greatest wish was to be a wife and mom. I very rarely dated and only had three serious relationships, counting my husband. I would like to have a companion to travel with, etc...but most of the time I go by myself. If I waited to have someone to go with, I wouldn't go anywhere. I do not like to remain idle. I think that's because I don't want to remind myself how lonely I am, so I go out and see new things and make new friends all of the time. I just never thought I would always be single. I know a lot of this is my fault. I compared everyone to the love of my life and no one was him. I am somewhat domesticated in the fact I love to cook and bake. We did not have a lot of money when I was younger, so I learned how to do a lot with very little. My favorite is all things Italian. (And of course, I'm Italian.) Ask my friend Orv Neconie about my lasagne and my chicken cordon bleu. (He's from class of '72.) It's not a lot of fun to cook for one, so I love to go to potlucks when I can make a lot of food. The good thing about being single, I can go where I want, when I want and can be gone for...Expand for more