When I was in high school in Rockingham, I had so many friends, many of them guys.  I really had not thought about it until it was mentioned to me at one of our class reunions, but I never dated any boys from Rockingham.  My dates were guys from Hamlet, all of them.  When I look back on that, it seems rather strange; I certainly liked talking to and joking with my classmates, but couldn't really date anyone because I was always dating or going steady with a guy from Hamlet.

 

I remember that one of my first boyfriends walked me home from first grade, which I did attend in Hamlet.  Mother worked in Hamlet and wanted to be able to pick me up from school if I got sick and had to go home.  She took me to my aunt's house, beside the grocery store, so that I could be taken care of if necessary.  My first boyfriend was Al Kressley, and he didn't get as far as the front steps before my grandmother came out and invited him to go home.  She didn't like the idea of any boy walking her grand daughter home from school; he never made that mistake again.

 

I did switch to L J Bell in the second grade, but don't remember any other boyfriends until fourth grade when Glenn Williams walked me home and carried my books as well as his.  As I've said before, I thought that was wonderful and have never forgotten it.  In jr. high, I flirted with a neighbor, Jim Warnock who lived up the street, but we were too young to really date.  My parents would not let me date until I was sixteen.  In high school, tenth grade, I was already going steady with a boy from Hamlet for that year.  We broke up because he went to college.  I dated two or three other boys in the eleventh grade, and attended the Hamlet Jr. Sr. with one of them.  By my senior year, I was going steady with the young man I married, so no chance of me dating anyone else.

 

I did have fun with all you guys in Rockingham, Johnny Spivey, who wanted his picture taken with the Hi Lite staff so I appointed him assistant sports editor and we are all in the picture.  I enjoyed talking to Louis Newton in Algebra class, but he was already dating someone else.  Loved flirting with Gary Vick in Social Studies class, Mrs. Spangler was such a fantastic teacher.  I was in her class when we all found out that President Kennedy had been killed.  Ken Goodman was a good friend and we talked a lot in French.  He and Ann Long were my best friends in that class, they said later that I helped them pass French.

 

My buddy Mickey McIntosh and I had a blast in senior English, much to Miss Howell's chagrin.  We could talk about anything, and did, so much so that Miss Howell had to separate us finally.  That was okay, we sometimes did sign language to each other across the room!  Johnny Spivey was a pretty good flirt in that class, always making me laugh.

 

I worked in Mr. Mulkey's office and my most treasured memories of that revolved around being sent to the various classes to let students know that they needed to come to the office.  I got Ernest Bryant out of class several times, and Jack Robinson also.  They had transferred into RHS and somehow questions always came up that they had to answer.  I was on cloud nine when I got those two out of class and got to flirt with them all the way to the office. I think I had to get Lindy Cockman out of class also, he was a cute guy.  I'm sure there were more but those stand out in my memory.  Too many of the really cute guys were also going steady, such as Charlie Yow and Gary Vick, so I didn't flirt with them.  At some point, earlier, I had a crush on Woody Jenkins, but that didn't turn into anything.

 

There was also a distinct group of cute guys who were the preppies, Butch Spencer, Howard Cannon, can't remember who else, but I wasn't too preppy (I guess I was when a senior), so I didn't think they would even notice me.  I did attend a lot of the football games to see my Rockets play, but spent most of the time walking around the sidelines looking for cute boys to flirt with, that's where I met Mickey before we were in class together.  Before the race track was built, I got to ride around in a convertible which was a promotional car that would be raffled off to raise money for the "Rock" and that was fun.  It was a great way to ride around and wave at cute boys, I can't believe they trusted a bunch of us to drive that car!!  We did take good care of it, and it was raffled off at some celebration in Rockingham.

 

So there you have it, I did spend a lot of my time dreaming about all those cute Rockingham boys surrounding me, but I just dreamed and did not follow up with dates with any of them.  If I could do it over, like Peggy Sue did, I would go out with some of those guys, after all, Settle Dockery was in my geometry class, and I noticed him noticing me several times, or maybe he was just looking at his mother present the math problems.  Oh well, my girlfriends certainly dated in Rockingham, they probably would not have thought about dating a boy from the town known as our chief rival.