| Chapter Sixteen: The Gang
Rose Marie Teti Ruck-Ruck (she married and divorced Bill Ruck TWICE.) We first met in kindergarten. She looked so much like Little Orphan Annie that I took her home with me. She had dark red curly hair and was adorable. Freckles and all! My mother finally found out who she was and took her home. My mother knew her mother, who off course was happy to see her since she had never come home from school. We went all thru school together, sometimes really friendly, than we’d switch off to other friends. We swam at the same pool, Roller-skated at the same rinks. There were years when I didn't see her but we both ended up in Point Pleasant Boro and became good friends again. Her husband Bill and Bud were drinking buddies! And I do mean DRINKING buddies. Neither of them came home sober often. Bill would go home and beat Ro up and Bud kept his end, doing the same to me. She had one daughter (Diane) who hasn't spoken to her in 15 years and is the same age as Susie, and a son Billy, who is bi-polar. He is Linda’s age. He can be very nasty when he wants to, which is most of the time. He now lives with her, as he can't keep a job due to his temperament. Of course he blames it all on RO (does this sound familiar to you?). After she divorced Bill the SECOND time she married a childhood sweetheart (Also named Bill) Irving. He had a heart attack and died while I was working for Mamie Devoe in Brick, or shortly there after. Ro is a REAL Hypochondriac! No one wants to spend much time with her or call her because all she talks about is ALL her ailments (sounds like me huh?). She is the ONLY person I know who has been to EVERY doctor in the state of NJ, that includes dentist, eye optometrist, heart doctors, gynecologist... you name him she’s been there. NO ONE pleases her. She says they're all in cahoots and cover for one another when one makes a mistake. So now NO ONE wants her as a patient for anything. She DOES have some legitimate arguments, but since she's been to so many different doctors they simply ignore her. She’s almost blind in one eye gets lost going around the corner. IS NEVER ON TIME, and you wouldn't believe the excuses she gives for not coming to lunch. The best one was when she said she stopped at the ATM to get some cash FOR lunch and the machine tried to suck her hand in and it got caught, hurting it so she went home! WE ALL cracked up at that one! I still talk to her several times a week, but have had to cut back lately as it always ends up costing me two or three dollars a call. I feel sorry for her since Diane is such a bitch and will walk right by her in the super market and never speaks to her. JUST LIKE SUSIE! I know this hurts RO and I do feel sorry for her. I wish she didn't live so far away. Fifteen miles never used to bother me to drive but to day it seems like a hundred. I first met the following friends in ninth grade. They had transferred from Catholic school after graduating from eight grade. There was Doris (Bogart) Baxter Galley, and Ellen (Walsh) Russaomano Obach. They were best friends from kindergarten all thru high school. Doris was a REAL beauty, and a very nice girl. She never talked about anyone in an unkind way. EVERYBODY loved her. She’s never changed thru the years. One time we both liked the same guy (Buddy O'keefe). I was so jealous of her. She ALWAYS looked so perfect, hair just right, the whole nine yards. One Friday night when everyone went roller-skating at Roseland rink in West End, I did a really rotten thing. I took a water pistol to the rink and shot out all her curly hair. It made me happy at the time but so ashamed afterwards. We STILL laugh about it today, but I did end up with buddy and were also life long friends. Doris lived with her mother and Aunt Louise. She never met her father, and whether her mother married him or if she did they got divorced. No one ever knew what happened there. Doris and I became really good friends during high school and closer after she married George Baxter, who was a one-night stand. She really was in love with a handsome guy from Spring Lake named Ed Becker. She became pregnant with George's child (GREG BAXTER) and she was married just before Christmas. I was one of her bridesmaids, so was Cookie, Pat, and Ellen. Greg was born the following March. Cyril and I were married the same year in April and we carried the unborn kids at the same time. I was married 4 months after getting married so Greg was born in March. Susie in July of 1948. Doris was Susie's Godmother. As I said, she was madly in love with Ed Becker. The night before she got married I went with her to say good-by to Ed. He wanted her to run off with him and get married, but she said she couldn't do that to her mother and Aunt. Cookie had told her the same thing. GO MARRY ED1, but she still couldn't do it. The wedding took place the following day. The marriage turned out okay, but I know she always wished that she had listened to us and her heart. During her marriage to George she fell in love with Mel Blasidell. I adored him. I had always had a secret crush on him, but those two were made for each other. The next thing I knew she was pregnant again with TWINS, which made medical history. They were one of the one in a million twins who each had a different father. Carol was a beauty who looked like George, brown eyes and brown hair and Jean was a blond with light blue eyes identical to Mel Blasdell. She was the spitting image of him, YET there was only ONE placenta. She must have had sex with both of them the same night and both eggs fertilized. A medical miracle! Even George knew but never did anything about it. George had a major heart attack one night and was dead before the first aid could get to him. Her last child Steven committed suicide six months later. He was around Linda and Sally's age. He broke up with his girlfriend one night and put a gun in his mouth and killed himself. Such a tragedy. Doris never got over it and she started drinking pretty heavy. She moved to Florida (where they had a trailer) and finally met a nice guy named Jerry Galley. They have been happily married for about 25 years now. Sally was born three months AFTER the twins and went to school with them. The twins were 31/2 months premature and weighed in at 1 1/2 and 1 3/4 lbs. respectively. They all live in Fla. Now except Greg. Ellen was very smart in school. She married a local bum who never worked and spend his entire life at the track. She had three sons and she ALWAYS worked at Fort Monmouth. She had a nose job and looked so cute afterwards. She met and fell in love with a Captain in the Army, Ron Obach. He was a graduate of West Point. They had 23 wonderful years together until he got sick. He died last year of heart decease. Ellen has had breast cancer and lung cancer but so far has beat them both. She's very careful what she eats and takes good care of herself. She has endless energy and is ALWAYS in the middle of some project, like I said she is VERY SMART! She misses Ron but goes on with her life. She just sold her house this year out in Colts Neck and bought a beautiful Town house off Deal road. She said there were too many memories of Ron in the house, plus it had a pool and it took a lot of extra energy and time so she sold it. She's very happy now. Ellen looks like she's about 60 years old. If you saw her you'd NEVER believe she is 77. She had her eyes done and her nose and MAYBE other stuff, but whatever she's done SHE LOOKS GREAT! My most vivid memory of her in high school is the night we had a sleep over (then known as a pajama party at her house) and we shoved Merle Hyde (the class clown) OUT the door and called the police. Merle got so excited she broke the front door down, which did not set well with Ellen’s aunt who she lived with. AUNT PAULIE threw us ALL out and made us pay for the door besides. We still laugh at that! Cookie (Lillian Cook) Teti and Pat (McCarthy) Perlswig were best friends ALL thru grade school and high School. You never saw on without the other. I first met them both while roller-skating at West End, and then they were part of "the gang " in high school. Cookies mother died when she was little and her grandmother brought her up. She lived over her grandmother’s restaurant on Brighton Avenue (which is now the LAUGH_IN). She couldn't go out for sports after school like the rest of the girls, as she had to go home from school to help out in the restaurant. She also escorted her Grandfather to the local bars, as he had trouble walking to and coming home! She married John Teti (our class president) soon after graduating from LBHS. Cookie, Pat, Doris, Ellen and I ALL worked for the telephone as operators right after school. Cookie is an angel. IF ANYONE should go to heaven it's her. She is the most thoughtful, most caring best friend anyone could wish for. She would do ANYTHING FOR ANYONE AT ANY TIME- A TRUE FRIEND. I have no idea how she does ALL the things she does for everyone, ALL THE TIME!! Pats death hit her hard. She has been widowed for over 20 years. She had three children John (who Linda and Sally both had a crush on), a daughter Peggy, and another son Steven. She has five grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews who she treats like her own kids. ALWAYS remember ALL their birthdays and spends a fortune on them. Just an extremely caring, giving person and ALWAYS has a smile on her face. When she was younger she looked just like Doris Day. I don't know what I would do without her. As I said before, Pat and Cookie were always best friends. Pat and I became very good friends when we both discovered horse racing. She met Danny while we were working at the telephone company. He was first an exercise boy and then a jockey. He was a lousy jockey but a good trainer. Of course in order to be a good jockey you needed to get great mounts. Danny didn't. They had a hard life in the beginning. They lived in a trailer, moved from here to Atlantic City in August and Sept (their trailer park was about 1 1/2 miles down the street from Stockton College on the same road), to Garden State in the fall, and the down to Florida in the winter. They had two kids. Judy (Who I adore!) and Mark. Mark looks so much like Danny it's unbelievle. Judy is sweet, thoughtful, and very caring. She comes up from Mt. Laurel to take Cookie and I out to lunch a couple of times a year. Her last name is STOMEL. She has a great personality. She always saved me a seat in their box to watch the HASKELL as my seat on the second level was used for the visiting horsemen etc. Danny never gambles but Pat would. She was really very sick her last 3 years and Danny put up with a lot, as Pat felt so bad. She had a major heart attack, surgery, lung cancer and God knows what else. Danny was lucky to have Judy and Mark close by to help give moral support etc. I'm so happy that Danny has gone on with his life and is now enjoying his cruises where he is a host to the ladies (dances with them etc). He even has met some very nice interesting women on his voyages to Russia, Norway, Alaska, and the Mediterranean etc. He and Pat went to Hawaii a couple of times, Egypt, and Israel. Corrine (MILLER)) Primavera was my maid of honor when I married Cyril. We had been good friends since 8th grade. She is a really classy, very nice gal. We went horseback riding in high school, and had some of the same boyfriends (she dated Alden West and I went with his younger brother Thurlow). We had lots of great times together. She married Jerry Primavera who's family made a fortune during the war selling black market food etc. He was a nice guy who her mother actually picked out for her. (She knew what she was doing!). They have had a very nice life with BEAUTIFUL homes in Monmouth Beach and Naples Florida. Jerry has been sick the past few years with both heart decease and pulmonary decease. Corrine has had MS for the past forty years. I have NEVER heard her complain ONCE! They were lucky to have money to pay for the best medical doctors around who kept them going, like Corrine said "YES it kept them going and going to the doctors for YEARS!" Jerry died this past year in July (2005) I think it was. Corrine lives alone (but with aids etc) in Monmouth Beach. Fortunately they sold their home in Naples in March before Katrina and the other hurricanes hit there. They did loose a home in Martique a few years ago to a storm though. They had two children. Alse who is about Susie's age (she writes children’s books and draws all the animations for them herself). She also designed the Xmas "thank yous" for Mrs. Bush and was on television on The White House Christmas video. Tommy is a lawyer, but I think he was disbarred for some scandal. I think he now handles all his fathers contracting businesses. Corinne is now using a walker and tries to get to lunch each month, but sometimes our lunches are the same day as her many doctors appointments. Money has not changed Corinne. She is still the same sweet girl I knew in high school. She has never changed. She has a great sense of humor and is honest and frank. I think she is the MOST down to earth gal in our group (outside of Cookie). Driene (GREIFS) Squilare and I became VERY close friends in 8th grade. She lived in Shadow Lawn Manor, next to Monmouth College. We used to go roller-skating at the Casino in Asbury Park in the summer of 1941 and 1942. In tenth grade we played hooky with her then boyfriend (Freddie Woods) and Cyril and I We went to Cold Indian springs to sunbath and swim. Of course we both got caught. It seems we were so close together that when we were BOTH missing from school on the same day (along with Cyril) the principal called her mother and my father and got the message. I was grounded for a month, which meant NO SKATING. That was the longest month of my life! I hated my stepmother for that, along with a few other things (like not being able to speak to my mother if I past her on the street IF I was with my father and her). God how I hated her!!! Anway… Dreine was a cheerleader but I always thought she never should have been chosen as she was always late at the games or wouldn't show up at all (actually I wanted her job). But she could do back flips and I couldn't. I did better cartwheels than she did! We got along GREAT together and I have lots of fond memories with her. She was cute, not pretty but just cute. She married Bob Squillare and never had any children. They got divorced but she NEVER got over him. He remarried and had a daughter. Driene started drinking and ended up an alcoholic. She doesn’t drink anymore but looks like she's 95. She's on oxygen and is always falling down and breaking bones. A few months ago she fell down in her kitchen and lay there 2 ½ days alone (her and her dog) until a neighbor called the police and they broke the door down and found her. Bob keeps coming around but everyone (except Driene) knows it's because he wants that house and Dreine doesn't have any close relatives to leave it to. I told her to leave it to the SPCA, since she has always been a dog lover. She thinks that's a good idea, and I hope she does just that! That leaves Ginney, Alice, and Fran. Ginny (WOOLLEY) is Bobby Demaree's cousin. Her dad was J RUSSEL WOOLLEY, the big cheese in the Republican Party here in Monmouth County for OVER 40 years. He was borough clerk in West Long Branch, then COUNTY CLERK here in our county. He is responsible for my father being County Engineer for over 25 years. That was an appointed job, which "BRICK" Woolley threw my father's way. I first met Ginney when we moved to WLB. I had been in a Feb class in LB and that was the last year they had Feb classes. I had a chance on being skipped 1/2 year or going back ½ year so I would be in a June class. That summer I met Howard Dalton who was in the June class in WLB. He was kind of cute so I decided to take the 8th grade first half over. BOY WAS I SMART, I knew the answers to EVERYTHING that first half. Ginny was in my class along with Bobby Demaree's younger sister Dolly. I knew her because my mother and her mother played bridge together each week. Dolly and Ginny were cousins. Ginny was a BIG girl. Not fat but very tall. I'll bet she was 5'11 at least. Her father was a really big wheel but she was always down to earth. A real nice girl. We have been closer since our monthly lunches as we moved in different circles. She is very nice, very classy and we e-mail a lot. I only see her at lunches, but we remain good friends to this day. Ginney married twice. Her first husband was Frances Golden (or was it Jack?). She divorced him and later married Joe Reilly. She has four I think kids (one boy and three girls). TJ used to own Jakes Gym in Long Branch. Anyway out of all the pictures I've taken of our group over the years, I always seem to get her with her mouth open! She’s a very nice gal and I like her a lot. ALICE (JOLINE) Esposito. She is related to me via my grandfathers "Uncle Billy JOLINE". Frank Tober (the guy who came into Billy's apt the day we moved his stuff out) is also relative to Alice. He's her cousin, which makes him some kind of relation to me. He has the family history and said I could read it if I wanted to. I may do that sometime in the future. Alice and I went out for cheerleading at the same time. She fell during try-outs and threw her knee out and had to quit. She might have may it otherwise except she couldn't do a back flip either. That’s how Driene got it that year! She (Alice) was just one of the girls and every now and then we'd lock horns over some stupid thing. Like she wasn't going to our class reunion because she didn't get an invitation, I told her '”THATS STUPID, IT PROBABLY GOT LOST IN THE MAIL!”. She didn't care, "I'M just NOT going!” So all of us told her she was being too sensitive to grow up and go SHE WENT! I can't remember her roller-skating but I'm sure she MUST have, EVERYBODY did in those days. THAT WAS OUR FRIDAY NIGHTS!. Saturday nights we all went to the movies for 10 cents. Then it went to 25 cents (and we got a double feature for that! Most of the times anyway). I was in the movies with Ro and the gang on December 7th, 1941 when the lights came on. The screen went off and the manager walked out onto the stage and said The U.S. had just been attacked at Pearl Harbor. At first no one believed him and they started booing. Then he repeated it and said the theater was shutting down to go home and pray. WE all got up and left. People were crying. I ran into my mother in the lobby and she was crying, Pop-Pop was there and Billy. It was very sad. Fran Unger. She was in that Feb class of mine but never graduated as she got Mono the last two months. She married three times. The first one died, the second one she divorced, and the third one died. She is my friend who just had her aneurysm operated on in August (2005), along with some blocked arties. She thought she was doing well but now is having trouble breathing and is worried sick over it. She has the money to fix the problem IF it can be fixed. She lives in the Channel Club. I like her a lot. Another classy gal. So that gives you a general knowledge of my friends and were they came from. I guess I could say that Ro, Corinne, and Cookie are my closest ones today, but they are all super women. We all got expelled from 9th grade for a week for wearing jeans and a mans white shirt to school one day, Boy how times have changed! I wish you and Sally knew them. Of course Bobby Demaree is another one. I adore her. She was gorgeous when she was young, and she worked in the 5 and 10-cent store dishing up ice cream. The line of guys circled around the block! She was also a great cheerleader, although about 6 years ahead of me in school. She became a nurse and married Dr, Denaree. They have 6 kids Alex, Pete, Johnny, Jimmy, Erick and one girl Christine. ... NEXT |
| T h e L o v e l y L o i s S t o r y A Biography of Lois Eleanor White |
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