I was a typical Bexley teenager hanging out with friends at Rubinos Pizza, the Esquire Theater, Jeffery Mansion, the Bexley library, and Johnson’s Ice Cream. My Jewish friends and I went swimming at the Excelsior Club in Bexley since Jews couldn’t belong to the prominent dining clubs and country clubs. Our high school sorority and dance clubs were also separate, and Jews weren’t allowed to live in Sessions Village, an upscale gated community blocks from where I lived. That’s the way it was, and I don’t remember anyone ever questioning or challenging it.

Pop culture, Beatlemania, and high hairdos were in style. On weekends we went to slumber parties and open houses to meet guys. We danced to the Four Seasons - Big Girls Don’t Cry, Sherri, and Walk Like a Man. We listened to The Beach Boys - I Get Around, Surfin’ USA, and Help Me Rhonda.

Bexley girls could take Home Economics but not Industrial Arts. I envied the guys because they learned all sorts of cool things about tools and building stuff. While they were having fun creating little masterpieces out of wood, I had to thread Singer sewing machines and follow recipes for baking apple pies. Like my mother, cooking and sewing were never on my radar screen, but being a homemaker was a woman’s role in the early sixties.

Some of my friends and I have the words “bady-bady” or “goody-goody” under our senior picture in our 1966 Bexleo yearbook. A bady-bady was known for pushing the envelope and breaking the rules. I always considered it a compliment, but looking back, we weren’t really that bad; we were just teenagers being teenagers. Like the night my girlfriend, Kathy, and I decided to sneak out of my house and take my parents’ car for a spin. I was fourteen, and Kathy was fifteen. I slid behind the wheel, backed the car out of the garage, and off we went cruising the streets of Bexley. Fortunately, there were no other cars on the road, making my first driving experience fun and easy. That is until we realized a Bexley police car was behind us. The officer directed me to pull over and asked for my driver’s license. Because it didn’t exist, I tearily confessed we’d snuck out of the house and how much trouble I’d be in if my parents knew. Thankfully, the officer never asked my age or to see my license again. Instead, he gave Kathy and me a well-deserved lecture on responsibility, escorted us back home, and waited in the driveway until we were safely inside. It was a different time living in Bexley; there was barely a crime, people kept their doors unlocked, and luckily for us, cops were very friendly.

In high school, if the principal’s assistant, Miss Love (think drill sergeant), thought your skirt was too short, you had to go to her office and kneel on the ground as she measured the distance from the floor to the bottom of your skirt. If it was more than two inches, you were sent home to change. One day, she caught me walking down the hall and ordered me to her office. No surprise, her wooden yardstick proved her right, and out the door I went. This wasn’t the first time she sent me home, but this experience was different. My Mom had enough of the nonsense, marched me back to school, and gave Miss Love a piece of her mind; I was never sent home again.

One Saturday night, seven of us were squeezed into a car cruising around Bexley when someone had a brilliant idea to plaster shaving cream, mustard, ketchup, and who knows what else, on a silver Corvette sitting in front of a Tweed’s house. A “Tweed” was the name we gave the Columbus Academy boys because they were big into academics, wore tweed sport coats, and thought they were above it all. The “Tweeds” called Bexley students “Toads” because we were the ‘common folk’ in their eyes. It was all part of a silly rivalry between the schools, and you rarely saw Toads and Tweeds hang out together. Just as my friends and I finished covering the Corvette with selected food products, we heard police sirens, and blinking red lights were everywhere. Within days, we were in court standing before Mayor Ken McClure, and next to me, shaking with the rest of us, was the Mayor’s daughter, Linda. One girl’s mother angrily interrupted when the Mayor began talking, demanding we be punished for being so destructive. Our hearts sank in fear. That’s when my Mom came to the rescue (once again) and admonished the mother for being so rigid. “Even though the girls were foolish and irresponsible,” my Mom said, “they learned their lesson and certainly don’t deserve to be locked up.” Fortunately, the Mayor agreed; we apologized to the Tweed and reimbursed him for all cleaning and repair costs. Naturally, we had to deal with the gossip going around Bexley and Academy; it was big news that the Bexley girls got busted vandalizing a Tweed’s Corvette.

One of my most vivid memories was driving my Mom’s white Chevy Impala convertible down Cassingham Avenue, close to my home on East Broad Street.

My girlfriend, Libby, was just ahead of me, driving her Dad’s white Chevy Impala hardtop. The Beach Boys’ “Help Me Rhonda” blasted from both our car radios as we flew down Cassingham about 20 miles over the speed limit. What a blast! What a feeling of freedom, not a care in the world, bouncing to the music, pedal to the metal, hair blowing in the wind. But then the unthinkable happened. My Mom was standing on the sidewalk, frozen in her tracks with a look of terror and anger on her face like I’d never seen; her mouth was wide open. Of course everything came to a halt, and all driving privileges were taken away for two long weeks. Libby and I lost touch with each other after high school, and she’s since passed away. But when I hear “Help Me Rhonda,” it takes me back to high school and makes me think of Libby on that beautiful, crazy summer day.

My high school friends remain a huge part of my life; after all, we grew up in each other’s homes and know one another like no one else does. We’re spread across the country but continue to visit each other, talk, and Zoom. Every class reunion since 1966, we’ve gathered in Bexley to celebrate our forever friendship. Now that we’re in our EARLY seventies, we’re more reflective, philosophical, political, and a whole lot wiser than we were in high school. Fortunately, the teasing, laughing, love, and immaturity are still there.

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