Igor & Maureen:
A Story Of True First Love
by
Mrs. Ekaterina Cooper of Morehead, Kentucky, USA.
added on 20/02/2011
Call me Gretel. Maureen Noel and I were good friends
during the 1968-69 school year at Holmes High School in Covington, Kentucky.
We'd both been growing our hair for two years. Maureen with bangs, and
I without.Maureen's long auburn hair was the prettiest, and also the longest
in all of the 7TH Grade that school year. Igor Mills was the boy who'd
won Maureen's affections. Igor was just a typical, average American boy.
He wasn't into any of the in-crowd things like some of us. Also, he liked
being clean-cut as a gentleman ought to be. As the rest of our high school
years passed by, eventually both Maureen & I had grown our hair together
to such a length that we both had the longest lengths between us upon graduating
from Holmes High School in 1974. Igor always wanted to be a railroad mechanic
repairing locomotives in between runs, and Maureen decided that she'd either
teach school, or just stay around the house awaiting the arrival of each
of igor's paychecks, which ever would come first. As Igor studied engineering
and Maureen studied Elementary Education all while sharing an off-campus
apartment together in Duluth, Minnesota. Anyone will admit that college
years are often the toughest in one's life. Some of our fellow students,
about the time of the U.S. Bicentennial felt that Maureen and I should
try the wedge-cut made popular by Dorothy Hamill, but we showed no interest
in such a crummy coiffere. Anyway, as Igor studied at night, and worked
in a supermarket in the day, I sometimes visited with Maureen, and we'd
take turns brushing one another's hair, and sometimes in unison as we'd
done so during our various sleepovers back in high school. Ofcourse, the
talk about that horrid wedge-cut made us think of a dear friend named Fanny
Malcene. Up until age 12, Fanny never had a haircut, thank goodness, but
it was the divorce of her Parents at age 9, followed by her Father's remarrying
within a year in a half that led to Fanny getting a rather wicked stepmother.
This woman had forbade Fanny from the thoughts of boys, and on the last
Friday before class picture week, Percy Niceley happened to pass by Fanny's
house, and on Monday, Fanny showed up at school with a shorter length as
a result of her stepmother's punishment of her as seen in Fanny's student
portrait in the top row, thrid from the right, of the second column on
page 148 of the 1969 Holmes High School lest We Forget yearbook. Fanny
was never sadder than that day. However, that was mostly in the past. Now
we'd not seen Fanny since we got out for summer vacation in 1969, but I
had a feeling we'd see Fanny again before graduating college.
Now it was while we attended the U.M.D. (University of
Minnesota at Duluth) versus U.M.M. (University of Minnesota at Minneapolis)
football game during their homecoming when we noticed a slightly familiar
face. Those amazingly long dark brown tresses and the freckles of the homecoming
queen for U.M.M. It could be only one person we knew with such legs, such
a face, and also such long, flowing hair. It was Fanny. Now the homecoming
dance was not until that night, so we decided to stick around to see if
Fanny would recognize either of us.
As we got in closer to Fanny on the dance floor with Maureen
dancing with Igor, and I dancing with Bertram Abdul Addams, we were finally
close enough to exchange conversation. Maureen asked, "Oh, Fanny! I just
love the way you regrew your hair! Was it just natural, or mail order formulas
to help growth and restoration?" Fanny answered, "Why, Maureen! Gretel!
What are you doing here?" I replied, "We came here for the game. We didn't
know you attended college here?" So Fanny let us in on what happened after
the summer of 1969. She told us of how the judge from a Minnesota Family
Court ruled that the haircut given to her by her stepmother was unfair,
and unwanted, resulting in her going to live with her birth mother, and
allowing for Fanny's hair to once more grow long. As spring of 1979 approached,
Maureen & Igor prepared for their wedding that May. I was Maureen's
maid-of-honor. Since Fanny was crowned as the homecoming queen of her college
months before, she let Maureen borrow her tiara for the wedding ceremony.
In exhcange, fanny became one of Maureen's bridesmaids.
In fact, despite having been the cause of Fanny's punishment
years before, Percy was now
Fanny's escort when Maureen & Igor came down the aisle
as husband and wife. When Maureen tossed the bouquet, I was just confident
enough to make a grab for it, yet due to the extra long ribbon that tied
the flowers together, both Fanny and I caught the bouquet together.
Almost a whole year passed by when on Saturday May 17TH,
1980, Maureen gave birth to a son she named Boris K. Mills. The 'K' stood
for Karloff. As Boris was nursing on Maureen's right-side breast, she said,
"My son. My own little Boris Karloff. today you've made me the happiest
of all pretty ladies. May you someday find a wife as beautiful as your
mother".
Eventually, I went on to marry Bertram Abdul Addams, and
Fanny married Percy, and to this day Maureen, Fanny, and I still have our
long hair.
THE END
Back to Boy meets
Girl Index