It was July 1973. My parents got a membership to the Scuttlebutt swim club in Roxborough, behind the Woolworth’s on Domino lane. I remember three things from that summer. Next to the pinball machines was a thing called a "Video Game". It was cool but all it did was play ping pong. Next to that "Pong" machine was a jukebox where you would hear the same songs over and over. Sugar, sugar by the Archie’s, Go all the way by the Raspberries and Shambala by Three Dog Night. The third thing I remember was someone there everyday that I started hanging out with. Her name was Theresa. She was 10, a year younger than I was. For those 2 months we were inseparable. Playing pong or pool or swimming when our quarters ran out. Getting in trouble for running around. An excellent summer that ended all too soon with my 12th birthday and 7th grade. Like most kids by the time winter came, summer was forgotten.

In the spring of 1974 one of my school projects was to grow cucumbers indoors and keep a daily diary. After a couple days of writing nothing but “watered seeds, still nothing happening”, I started counting down the days to the end of school. Then I found out we were going back to the swim club that year so I switched to counting the days until the Scuttlebutt opened. It was a struggle to write something every day even when the first little sprouts started popping up.

Then one day while writing something like “46 days till swim club” I hear on the radio, "You are my candy girl, And you've got me wanting you." and then "When I kissed you, girl, I knew how sweet a kiss could be". I was lost in thought then, because most of the schoolyard talk of 12 year old boys was about girls and all those weird feelings we were starting to get. And then I thought about Theresa.

Over the next few weeks I thought about Theresa at least every day while I wrote my diary entry. The cucumbers were growing and I was remembering a lot about the previous summer. I couldn't remember her last name but I knew it sounded like "Mark and Donna Tay". While remembering and writing and counting down the days till Theresa, my 12-year-old brain could not comprehend what I was feeling. What about those songs? They would have gone something like, "I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you”, "I just can't believe the one to love this feeling to”, "But now I've changed. And it feels so strange. I come alive when she does all those things to me" Or maybe "Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain With the rain in Shambala". No, definitely no help there because I knew as much about Love as I did "Going all the way". And I didn't know where Shambala was or if it was real.

Looking back in hindsight, I can see my crush on Theresa grew mostly out of remembering and thinking and the anticipation of seeing her again. I wrote about the new songs that were hits and should be on the jukebox. I wrote about how great the summer was going to be and how I would be a teenager when it was over so I wasn't a kid anymore. I wrote about how I was going to a summer camp for two weeks and how I would miss her but I would be back. I wrote about a lot of things that I can't remember. The project was done for a week and I was still writing in my diary.

And then the day came to go to the swim club.

Theresa was not there.

School was done. Weekdays were spent at the Scuttlebutt. Theresa and her family did not renew their membership.

In my closet, above the drop ceiling where I kept my diary hidden, I wrote something in ink on the wall. "Theresa Markandonte" and a big ?

That was our last year at the swim club. I remember nothing about it.

In 1992 I moved back in to my old house and my old room. Out of curiosity I climbed up into the closet ceiling. There were 3 or 4 girl’s names up there. My sister had added comments to them that were quite amusing. I had thought about Theresa a few times over the years. When the swim club changed from the Scuttlebutt to Keenan's Valley View Inn and when my Father had his 50th birthday party there. I wondered whatever happened to Theresa.

In 2001 I took a course in search engine technology that opened my eyes to the possibilities of the Internet being used as a time machine. On one of my web pages I write this story about my first crush. The idea was that someday, Theresa would be searching for something and find the page. And I just wanted her to know how she played a big part in my life and was curious if she even knew who I was.

Three years later I get an email to the yahoo address I have listed on that page. It immediately gets my attention because it was addressed to my full name. Which is nowhere on any of my web pages.

It's from Theresa. Telling me how she found the page. Telling me how she had snuck a look at our member card and never forgot my last name. Telling me how she had a great summer and didn't know till after it was over that they wouldn't be back the next year. She said she didn't know about the crush but I was just happy to know she remembered me.

Thirty years after I had my first crush, I was able to tell her about it. With the aid of modern technology one can sit behind a desk and see images from Virtual Earth. But it’s a sad trip. Look at this picture of what was once the Scuttlebutt Swim Club.

It is still a caterers and a restaurant but the pool has not been used in years.

I also remembered why it is called a crush. I was crushed all right. That summer in 1974 at camp I decided I was going to be a priest. But that is a whole other story...

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