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From the 1984 Cooperstown Central School Yearbook:
Poems Written with Anthony in Mind:
Anthony was my boyfriend when I was fifteen . . . one day the principal summoned Anthony to his office, asking, is everything okay at home? From what I remember, the gym teacher noticed quite a bit of bruising and reported it to the principal. Everything was fine at home, no, he hadn't been beaten . . . he went to a doctor who discovered Leukemia . . . Anthony eventually stopped coming to school, though did come back for a short period . . . in many ways we drifted apart . . . I think the last time I saw him was during a hospitalization in the late Spring / early Summer . . . there were a couple of us there . . . I know Craig was there, though I'm not sure who else . . . that summer was wild as I began working for a traveling carnival . . . the carnival was in town for the Fourth of July celebrations . . . Candy, one of the carnival crew, injured her arm while making cotton candy so they needed a replacement . . . my friend Sue knew them [I don't remember how / why] and since I just turned sixteen [she was fifteen] they ended up hiring me . . . I remember running the Moonwalk, an air filled bouncefest, and getting crazily drunk . . . I began seeing Rick, a carnival employee they hired when they were in Oswego . . . eventually the weekend passed and Robin & Dave, the owners, asked me to accompany them . . . at first my step mother said no way though eventually said okay . . . Robin and Dave lived in Utica, NY and I stayed at their house . . . Rick stayed there too . . . between carnival gigs I would help out around the hose and baby-sit their sons, Mikey and DJ . . . I was supposed to sleep in the boy's room though after two days I began sleeping on the livingroom floor beside Rick as we could crank up the air conditioner . . . working with the carnival and living in Utica changed my life in many ways . . . at one point during the summer I received a phone call [I don't remember who called] telling me that Anthony was pretty ill so I made plans to go back to Cooperstown to see him . . . he died before I made it back . . . I was crushed that I never said good-bye and Anthony's death had a deep impact on me . . . sometime later Craig told me that he would always be pissed at me for not sleeping with Anthony, that it would have meant a lot to him . . . Anthony and I never discussed sex and I don't know why we didn't . . .
Anthony's yearbook message to me: 1980:
Anthony's yearbook message to me: 1982:
