When we moved to 1015 Woodland Avenue it became an increasing number of disappointments The interior of the triplex we lived in was in sad need of paint and repair. I won't enumerate the problems; suffice it to say it would cost a small fortune to get it to be livable It was made livable for me because of the beautiful girl who lived next door. I was a freshman in high school and she was an eighth grader. So we didn't see each other at school. What made it even worse was she had a steady boyfriend named Lefty Bevington. Yeah, with a name like that he was not only tough but an accomplished athlete in softball, baseball and football. I was not accomplished in anything but I WAS the boy next door!
Leta and I became acquainted but it was not until she was a Freshman at PUHS and I a Sophomore that we became good buddies. I never, ever made a move on her. She was out of my class and dated all the good looking hot shots in school and went to all the dances, parties and knew all the school gossip. She had oodles and gobs of girlfriends and soon I knew them all. So I was the boy next door to whom she always spilled her guts when the boys ticked her off, likewise her girlfriends. Eventually she moved from Lefty Bevington to Jerry Littell whom I liked better and thought he was more deserving of her. Jerry lasted quite awhile and she moved on to other charmers and I learned through Leta what to do and what not to do when dating....i.e. when you go on a hayride with a beautiful girl and you are one of the most handsome boys in school but not too accomplished in dating ettiquette, you do not ask the girl (after several minutes of awkward silence) "Do you want to neck?" He did and she didn't and the rest of the evening was very awkward for him who had dreamed of getting this beautiful creature in a haystack!!
I was Leta's confidante all though my 4 years of high school, meeting all her boyfriends and girlfriends who greeted me on campus to the wonderment of my friends who were "nobody's" like me! But finally I graduated, my parents divorced and me and my mom, sis and brother moved away. Leta and I kept in touch by phone and she still included me in the story of her life. Finally, in her senior year I got a phone call from her and she told me that she had run off with Rees Ragains and gotten married. I had never heard of Rees and didn't meet him until years late when I ran into him and Leta at a grocery store. Leta had a very distinctive voice and I heard her in the next aisle and peeked around the end of the aisle and there she was with a man whom she introduced as Rees. Over the years Leta and I kept in touch by phone through my 48 years of marriage and neither my spouse nor Leta's were jealous of our friendship and they never met each other. I never went to their house and they never came to mine but our friendship never ended until many years later.
Leta and Rees had two sons and one granddaughter, named Reese. Finally, about two years ago Leta was diagnosed with lung cancer. She was being treated at Mayo Clinic. We still would talk on the phone until her voice would give out. It was hard for me to listen to that raspy voice but she still never lost her sense of humor. I talked on the phone with her right up until almost the end of her life when she went to Mayo's for a treatment and accidentally fell and broke her hip and died within a short time.
She did not want a funeral so she was cremated. I am glad I did not have to attend a funeral. Now I can remember her as one of my very best friends....Who gave me a 5x7 enlargement of the photo above. The only difference being that on my 5x7 print she wrote in ink "Next to me I love you best!" Leta
My Leta! Always the jokester
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