Sometimes, the best intentions have unexpected and disappointing outcomes.  It’s best explained by an email I sent today to my best friend and fellow high school partner in crime(s), Larry Bassett…

In the words of the famous poet LFB, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you get the paper airplane.”

 Just when you think you’ve got the best story ever with a “wow finish,” facts intrude to wreck the entire enterprise.  To wit:  a new story about Mrs. Margaret Stephens, erstwhile play director and theatrical maven about town, and her husband, re the failed attempt to banish him for corrupting the clean-shaven faces of Sunbury’s high school males by brazenly showing up for classes at the beginning of the 1967 school year sporting a short beard.  Their impeccable creds of being part of THE educational establishment via her father, Frederick Padgett, were precariously balanced against their secret lives of psychedelic insanity hidden away in their staid Victorian home in Northumberland.  What a shock value.  Not.  I use the Facebook group page “Sunbury, Pennsylvania” (amongst about 40 others) to advertise/shill for my website.  An innocent posting on the Sunbury group page announcing the forthcoming story revealed to my horror that their alter lifestyle was WELL KNOWN at the time (1967-68 school year).  To enlarge the slice of my humble pie, they invited THE ENTIRE CAST of the 1967 senior class play to partake of the psychedelic ambience (and who knows what else) of their no-longer-secret existence.  I hope the hell everybody got ripped outta their gourds.  PS:  according to the Daily Item archives, she died in January 1984 at the home of her mother in Sunbury after living for many years in San Francisco.  There may well be another story in THAT.  At this late remove, who’s to say?  The archives are silent about her husband.

For those who read and/or responded to my recent posting on the Facebook group “Sunbury, Pennsylvania,” fear not.  I’ve decided to tell the story anyway, even if the “wow finish” won’t be very “wow” to a number of people.  It’s the thought that counts.  That and preserving the memory of two interesting people, one of whom had a lasting impact on my life.  As I promised:  soon, but not yet.