An Early Hibernian Obsession

 An Early Hibernian Obsession



                                      the McCabe daughters with Mom Nora

     Growing up hetero was not always easy despite an entire society set up to make the journey one of lollipops and rainbows. Most of us started to notice girls around 5th grade and by 6th grade we were overmatched. I recall the Halloween scene at St. Helen's where the cutest girl in school dressed as a princess, wore lipstick and struck about a dozen boys smitten to the levels where we would do anything just to stare into her blue eyes. It will be another story about my obsession and failed attempt to win the heart of Jean Lowe but this blog is about Greg and he suffered the same malady that the rest of us young fellers were gripped by throughout our tween years. Greg matured earlier than I did but unfortunately was schooled by very poor role models who feared the rejections of the opposite sex with disappointing consequences. We saw these goddesses in the park, at kid's parties and in classrooms where our attention might be focused on the femme fatale in the red hair ribbon in the desk in front of us. We were not even dreaming of seeing the forbidden zones or sliding into second base. The ultimate would have been to walk around next to a girl wearing  lipstick and a pony-tail at POP or Tweedy boulevard. A kiss would have been reaching valhalla albeit a p pinnacle somewhat blocked by the braces on our teeth that made us like well-meaning gargoyles. Around South Gate, especially in Greg's neck of the woods there was the incredbile gold mine of colleens over at 10439 Alexander street, just a five minute walk from Sheehyville at 10431 McNerney. There in a simple, tract house were not one but four cute lasses named McCabe. It may have been the Celtic Sheehy blood but he was entranced by the mystique of the McCabes. The oldest, Mary was a classic beauty and wild at heart. My brother is still bragging about his tryst with the dark haired charmer. Cathy was my grade and we even exchanged childhood smooches in the cloak room at St. Helen. Yet like Goldilocks taste testing the thrid sister was just right for Greg and she was Teresa or Terri. The girls were always years ahead of us in development and Terri looked fine by the time she entered Pius X. Greg sometimes walked by the McCabe house just hoping to see some girl movement inside. So it was that when his teen hormones began to bang the drum inside his heart he plotted and fretted for months before he made his move. On a warm Summer night with vacation time making every day a feel-good festival he resolutely marched over to Alexander, knocked on the door and admitted his infatuation to the doe-eyed Terri. It was on that night that he crossed over into bondage to the weaker sex by gaining his first kiss. He never lost his obsession with the McCabe girls and even asked an older one out to no avail. Terri went on with her life and he made another girl happy for quite a spell.



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