First Name Initial

I wear it at the soda shop, wear it at the record hop,

Ridin' to a movie in your jeep,

I wear it when I go to gym, wear it when I take a swim,

I even wear it when I sleep.

- First Name Initial (Annette, 1959)

Two recent occurrences have combined to inspire my offering of this post: the start of a new decade a few months ago, and the recounting of my Iowa newspaper story here on February 3 (A Case Of Mistaken Identity).  This current post describes a phenomenon -- I hesitate  to call it an oddity --  to which I was introduced when my family moved to Iowa at the start of my eighth grade second semester.

***

As we approached the final days of the “10’s” last December, many critics and commentators treated us to Top Ten lists for that decade in all kinds of categories such as movies, athletes and athletic achievements, books, inventions, medical discoveries, Supreme Court cases, television shows, music and the like. The offering of lists in similar fashion is traditional at the end of virtually every decade. We also see near the close of each decade summaries of fads and trends which appeared, with varying degrees of shelf life, during those periods.  For example, according to the website bestlifeonline.com, some of the most noteworthy fads and trends during the “10’s” included the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Pokemon Go, the dance craze Flossing, and Words With Friends.  In preparation for this post, I asked my crack three person research team to google "fads and trends from the 1950's."  They came up with soda fountains, poodle skirts, hula hoops and long sideburns, among others, while a search for the early sixties gave us The Twist, mohair sweaters, penny loafers (with an actual penny inserted on the top notch), surf music and girl groups.

To my surprise, the fad which immediately greeted me when I arrived in Iowa in January of '61 did not show up on our exhaustive (?) searches: to wit, first name initials.  How could there be such a glaring omission of a fad which stands out as a clear memory from my grade school days?  Was the omission of first name initials due to that fashion accessory being strictly "an Iowa thing"?  No, and I'll tell you why momentarily, but first, a little background.

In my August 25, 2012 post (Chrome Dome & The Cub Reporter) I made brief mention of the co-ed condition in the two Catholic schools I attended during eighth grade.  In short, St. Joe's in Libertyville had two co-ed eighth grade rooms, while Our Lady Of Lourdes in Bettendorf also had two rooms of eighth graders, but they were separated by gender.  Ironically, among the eighty or so eighth graders in St. Joe’s co-ed setting, there was only one couple which could legitimately be deemed to have a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.  True, there were some girls in my class who took it upon themselves to "make matches" theoretically.  (This may have been the precursor to on-line dating.)  But, those were almost pure figments of the girls’ imaginations.  We must not have had many homework assignments in those days, because the girls who concocted these hypothetical pairings seemed to have all kinds of time on their hands.  My so-called match at St. Joe's was Joan Iaconetti.  Joan was a pleasant, intelligent young lady with sparkling eyes, but we rarely had a conversation in person, and most definitely not by phone.  I'm not even sure we were in the same eighth grade classroom.

When I arrived in Iowa the set up at Lourdes was quite different.  Not only were almost half of the guys and girls paired up in a real life amorous or at least quasi-amorous relationship, but many of the girls wore a first name initial pin indicating the object of their affection.  My first reaction, especially coming from St. Joe's apparently less-than-hip background, was that this was among  the craziest things I had ever encountered.  I had heard of high school upperclassmen giving their steady date their class ring, but in 1961 that would be at least a few years down the road for me and my fellow eighth graders.  Back in Libertyville, we guys spent our recess and lunch breaks playing ball in the park across the street, or else shooting marbles or pitching pennies against the church steps.  The concept of talking to a girl would be the farthest thing from our minds, and they probably felt the same way about us.

Lourdes was a whole other scenario.  There, the girls and guys spent a good chunk of their free time pairing up either alone or in small groups to socialize.  There was no guessing which guy "went with" which girl; all you had to do was look at the girl's first name initial pin, proudly worn on her uniform sweater.  Maybe the fact that the boys and girls were in segregated classrooms -- missing each other? -- accounted for some of the pin popularity, or perhaps another reason described in the next few paragraphs provided the answer.

***

During the last five years of the fifties, kids across the country grew up on The Mickey Mouse Club television show.  My sister, Michele, and I faithfully watched it when we came home from school.  The nationally syndicated show had a different theme for each day, like Music Day, Western Day, and the ever-mysterious Anything Can Happen Day.  The hour long show was hosted by an adult, Jimmie Dodd, but the real stars of the program were the Mouseketeers.  This group of ten or twelve girls and boys were the entertainers, singing, dancing and performing short skits which went along with that day's theme.  Although they were mostly young teenagers, the youngsters became national celebrities, wearing Mouseketeer caps, complete with rigid round ears, and white turtleneck sweaters with their first names printed across the chest.

Annette Funicello, or simply "Annette," was arguably the fan favorite.  Although each of the Mouseketeers was a very talented child performer, Annette had the most versatile and lengthy career, both as a singer and a (mostly) B-film actress.  Michele, always in tune with pop culture, bought a couple of Annette's '45's, and maybe even an album. During 1959 and 1960, Annette had four Top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including Tall Paul (peaking at # 7), O Dio Mio (# 10) and Pineapple Princess (# 11); plus, the key song germane to this post, First Name Initial (# 20).  That song, a quintessential statement of puppy love written by Martin Kalmanoff and Aaron Schroeder, expresses a girl's excitement for wearing her boyfriend's first name initial, a symbol for the world to see that the lucky guy belongs to her. 

And now for the mystery.  Could it be that the origin of the Iowa girls' fascination with first name initials was a derivative of the Annette song?  Probably, but if so, two questions.  First, why hadn't the Illinois girls latched on to this trend?  Listening to Top 40 music on WLS radio was a common pastime throughout Chicagoland, including Libertyville.  Surely the St. Joe's girls were familiar with Annette's hit song.  Maybe they were behind the cultural times compared to their Iowa sisters.  Or, more likely, maybe the male pickings at St. Joe's (at least the Class of '61) were so slim that the girls decided an outlaying of the eight or ten smackers for a pin to identify a guy was a waste of money.  

Second, First Name Initial made its debut on the Billboard charts on October 26, 1959.  It remained on the Hot 100 for eighteen weeks (far longer than the average Top 40 hit), taking us all the way to, roughly, the first week of March, 1960, almost an entire year before I arrived in Bettendorf.  Had the Lourdes girls been wearing first name initials all that time?  Most fashion fads ran their course long before that.  Perhaps the girls were just waiting for another popular style to come along to take the place of first name initials.  If one ever did show up in Bettendorf, it did not arrive until some time after mid-summer 1961.

***

At first I could not have cared less that a bunch of my female classmates were wearing the first name initial of their purported -- and probably actual -- boyfriend.  I viewed the practice as curious and quirky, but always kept in mind that I was the new kid on the block.  I was not about to ridicule or disparage their choices.  But then things got more personal.  One day either Michele or one of my buddies pointed out to me that a girl in my class, Cynthia Saldivar, was wearing a "J" pin on her sweater, and the word on the street was that the "J" was for me.  How could this be?  Aside from perhaps making eye contact once or twice, we had never spoken to each other.  Then to make matters more uncomfortable, Judy Pfaff, the girlfriend of my best friend Greg McCluskey and one of Cynthia's best friends, started to put the pressure on me to acknowledge the nascent, albeit fictional, relationship.  "Why don't you call her?  Why don't you eat lunch with her?  Why don't you hold her hand?"  Oh boy.  This was new territory for me.  Nothing against Cynthia, who was very pretty -- hopefully not coming off here as being shallow -- but I really didn't want to make the effort to meet her even half way.  That would be a waste of my time and hers.  Besides, I had my eye on a different girl, a seventh grader named Connie Foster who looked like Suzanne Pleshette.  (Cue Paul Simon's Kodachrome?)

***

We now have arrived at the end.  Cynthia and I became cordial friends, but nowhere near "an item."  Following eighth grade graduation I don't recall ever seeing her again.  In any event, she went on to Bettendorf High School for ninth grade, while I attended Assumption High in Davenport.

As for Suzanne... I mean Connie, it never got out of first gear.  It probably took me until early spring to work up the courage to talk to her.  We ran into each other a handful of times during the summer, but the vibe I got did not make me optimistic about the prospects.  What little hope there was for me came to a crashing halt right after classes began my freshman year at Assumption.  One early September morning I was on the school bus heading for Davenport when a sophomore came up and started to shove me backwards.  I shoved back, we both traded punches, and then some upperclassmen quickly broke it up.  That sophomore turned out to be Larry Foster, Connie's brother.  I obviously don't know what version of the story Larry told Connie, but I guess he was convincing.  I was unable to connect with her by phone.  Then, I remember mailing her a note on a card.  As the Beatles once sang, no reply.   

[Note: For the next exciting chapter on my Iowa love life, be sure to check out my July 15, 2015 post, Driving Miss Linda.]