A favorite photo of mine.....

This photo was posted on Facebook by my friend Annette, who is standing just to the left of the woman in the light blue shirt. That woman, is my FAVORITE TEACHER OF ALL TIME, Ms. Louise (Weezy) Rosswaag. We used to call her "Missus Washrag," but we loved her!!

Ms. R taught me to play the flute when I was in 5th grade. Imagine me, 10 years old, playing the flute and loving it, all because of this woman. She was, and still IS, awesome. She inspired all of us in the photo, (which was taken at my last high school reunion), to play an instrument in the band from 5th grade, all the way until the 9th grade. After that, Mr. Fretty took over in high school, and I still play it from time to time, just to keep up with it. It's like a therapy of sorts!! I used to be pretty darn good too, I have about 20 different blue ribbons from state competitions and stuff, and only one red ribbon (2nd place). So, I went back and forth from first chair to second chair, challenging my nemesis, Kelly Wabel, who sometimes won and sometimes lost. We had a great friendship though, she was really nice, and I didn't mind if she won sometimes.

From right to left.....my classmates and good friends, Lisa Dzubak-Lorenz, (flute), behind her is Chris Carrigan (trombone), next to him is Steve Krukowski (drums), then me in front of him, and my friend from Baltimore, Barbara Rance (flute), then Annette Plymale-Espinoza (clarinet), then Weezy, and next to her is my high school band instructor, Mr. Donald Fretty, and his wife behind him, and then my best friend Laurie Stratil-Lowder (coronet).

Lisa, Barbara, Annette and Laurie and I have been very close friends since we were all about 9 or so, and I was in all 3 weddings of Lisa, Laurie and Annette. Barbara & I are still single. I remember playing one piece of music so many times for Weezy, that the final time we played it, she had a tear stream down her face, it was PERFECTION she said, and we felt so proud!!

I love her to pieces!! In fact, I wanted Annette, Lisa, Barbara, Laurie and I to play our fight song together for them at the reunion, and we even practiced a few times to get it right, so they could have a "Mr. Holland's Opus" moment, but noooooooo, at the last minute, they all chickened out on me!! I couldn't believe it!! "They didn't want to look like BAND FAGS," they said, and I said, "Who the hell cares what the POPULAR KIDS STILL THINK? They're all OLD AND FAT like WE ARE!! SCREW 'EM!!" But they wouldn't do it. I was so totally bummed.

Anyway, we had invited teachers and our principals to the reunion and I was so glad to see these two show up. They were really great. We called Mr. Fretty "DW," and he was rather a fuddy duddy in a lot of ways, but he still made us want to work hard. He had the patience of a saint though. One day, after science class, I had snuck out the gooey green heart of a frog, taped it to a piece of paper, wrote "Dear Laurie, HAVE A HEART," and passed it to her in band class. She opened it, screamed, and tossed it through the air!! Someone else grabbed it, screamed, and tossed it again, and around and around it went, everybody screaming and laughing....it wasa hoot!! I got into so much trouble....hehehehe.....but it was pretty damned funny.

Well, that's one of my most favorite photos. Just wanted to share it with everybody.

Love, Becky