Lisa Langslet was a good friend of mine in 7th and 8th grades in particular. In 1972, she and her family moved to Allentown from Minnesota and they were of Norwegian descent. She had a great family, two sisters, and really neat parents.
Lisa was the first friend I'd had who was as tall as I was and wore exactly my size. We traded clothing sometimes which I enjoyed, since I never had a sister to do this with. She was a lot of fun, giggly, innocent and had a flair for drama and comedy, which we did with my tape recorder. We also played on the city kickball team together for a few years.
I still couldn't tell you what changed, but somewhere along the line Lisa started hanging with different people. I was no plaster saint myself, but her friends felt a little fast to me, and we sort of went our separate ways over time.
One night I got a call from another friend whose mother worked at the hospital. The friend told me she wanted to tell me something before I read it in the paper, and asked if I were sitting down. It came out that Lisa had been killed in a car accident. She had been a passenger in a car with four young people in it, and they had been driving through a park and drinking. The accident killed Lisa, and also Bill Fredrick, who was soon to become a father of a child with his girlfriend, a nice girl in some of my classes.
The funeral for Lisa was huge, and very sad as any funeral for a young person will be, but also filled with "It could have been me" feelings. I was not yet drinking much, but like any teen I experimented with stuff. I felt I knew the heart of Lisa, and she was basically a good person, never a troublemaker, maybe a little insecure as so many of us are in adolescence. Maybe hanging with more overtly socially sophisticated people made her feel more confident, but she was a kind, funny, sweet and unassuming person taken way too soon.
Lisa was the first friend I'd had who was as tall as I was and wore exactly my size. We traded clothing sometimes which I enjoyed, since I never had a sister to do this with. She was a lot of fun, giggly, innocent and had a flair for drama and comedy, which we did with my tape recorder. We also played on the city kickball team together for a few years.
I still couldn't tell you what changed, but somewhere along the line Lisa started hanging with different people. I was no plaster saint myself, but her friends felt a little fast to me, and we sort of went our separate ways over time.
One night I got a call from another friend whose mother worked at the hospital. The friend told me she wanted to tell me something before I read it in the paper, and asked if I were sitting down. It came out that Lisa had been killed in a car accident. She had been a passenger in a car with four young people in it, and they had been driving through a park and drinking. The accident killed Lisa, and also Bill Fredrick, who was soon to become a father of a child with his girlfriend, a nice girl in some of my classes.
The funeral for Lisa was huge, and very sad as any funeral for a young person will be, but also filled with "It could have been me" feelings. I was not yet drinking much, but like any teen I experimented with stuff. I felt I knew the heart of Lisa, and she was basically a good person, never a troublemaker, maybe a little insecure as so many of us are in adolescence. Maybe hanging with more overtly socially sophisticated people made her feel more confident, but she was a kind, funny, sweet and unassuming person taken way too soon.
Lisa Langslet was a good friend of mine in 7th and 8th grades in particular. In 1972, she and her family moved to Allentown from Minnesota and they were of Norwegian descent. She had a great family, two sisters, and really neat parents.
Lisa was the first friend I'd had who was as tall as I was and wore exactly my size. We traded clothing sometimes which I enjoyed, since I never had a sister to do this with. She was a lot of fun, giggly, innocent and had a flair for drama and comedy, which we did with my tape recorder. We also played on the city kickball team together for a few years.
I still couldn't tell you what changed, but somewhere along the line Lisa started hanging with different people. I was no plaster saint myself, but her friends felt a little fast to me, and we sort of went our separate ways over time.
One night I got a call from another friend whose mother worked at the hospital. The friend told me she wanted to tell me something before I read it in the paper, and asked if I were sitting down. It came out that Lisa had been killed in a car accident. She had been a passenger in a car with four young people in it, and they had been driving through a park and drinking. The accident killed Lisa, and also Bill Fredrick, who was soon to become a father of a child with his girlfriend, a nice girl in some of my classes.
The funeral for Lisa was huge, and very sad as any funeral for a young person will be, but also filled with "It could have been me" feelings. I was not yet drinking much, but like any teen I experimented with stuff. I felt I knew the heart of Lisa, and she was basically a good person, never a troublemaker, maybe a little insecure as so many of us are in adolescence. Maybe hanging with more overtly socially sophisticated people made her feel more confident, but she was a kind, funny, sweet and unassuming person taken way too soon.
Lisa was the first friend I'd had who was as tall as I was and wore exactly my size. We traded clothing sometimes which I enjoyed, since I never had a sister to do this with. She was a lot of fun, giggly, innocent and had a flair for drama and comedy, which we did with my tape recorder. We also played on the city kickball team together for a few years.
I still couldn't tell you what changed, but somewhere along the line Lisa started hanging with different people. I was no plaster saint myself, but her friends felt a little fast to me, and we sort of went our separate ways over time.
One night I got a call from another friend whose mother worked at the hospital. The friend told me she wanted to tell me something before I read it in the paper, and asked if I were sitting down. It came out that Lisa had been killed in a car accident. She had been a passenger in a car with four young people in it, and they had been driving through a park and drinking. The accident killed Lisa, and also Bill Fredrick, who was soon to become a father of a child with his girlfriend, a nice girl in some of my classes.
The funeral for Lisa was huge, and very sad as any funeral for a young person will be, but also filled with "It could have been me" feelings. I was not yet drinking much, but like any teen I experimented with stuff. I felt I knew the heart of Lisa, and she was basically a good person, never a troublemaker, maybe a little insecure as so many of us are in adolescence. Maybe hanging with more overtly socially sophisticated people made her feel more confident, but she was a kind, funny, sweet and unassuming person taken way too soon.
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