Back in the day <I won’t say how far back but I am about to celebrate four decades since I graduated high school!> I went to this private Catholic high school in Northern NJ. It was an all girls school and the nuns who ran it were of the Dominican order.

It was a very well known school for the area and many of the students came out of town to attend. I took a public bus 29. It went from Caldwell to Newark NJ along Bloomfield Avenuse. Many the girls in the school took this bus. We weren’t always well behaved on it either. After all it was the 70s. We smoked, we were loud, and sometimes we were downright obnoxious. So obnoxious that occasionally the bus drivers would literally pass our stop at a high rate of speed. Smart girls would walk one stop up and take the bus apart from the pack. I was smart.

Like all high schools everywhere certain factions would develop in which some girls were liked, some not so much. My sister is three years younger than I am, and unlike me, she would frequently get into trouble with nuns. She would also occasionally mouth off to certain girls whom one was better off not mouthing off to. Even in private Catholic schools you could get beat up in the 70s!

One group of girls had decided enough was enough. Rumor had it that they were waiting down at the bus stop to teach my sister a lesson. I didn’t hear about it until later or I would have walked her down. However she did have one girl who walked down with her. And this one girl promised Lisa no one would pick on her, and that she’d take them all on. She was literally bouncing on her toes telling my sister not to be afraid because she had her back. By the time I heard about it and got to the bus stop, it was nothing. The girls had dispersed and no harm done. <I’d like to say my sister learned her lesson, but unfortunately she grew up to be a lawyer, so I guess not>

Even before this incident, my sister and I liked this girl. She was bright, funny, and kind. One day after school I was starving and the busses were late. She gave me $5 to get some food and told me not to worry about paying her back. Did I mention besides being fearless she was loyal to a fault?

She had a beautiful face, you could just see the light in her eyes, and her love of life. The one thing I remember about her appearance, is how skinny she was and how she had the most knobbly knees poking out from the knee socks we had to wear! And even though Sister Alexis put her in the choir rather than solo, she could sing beautifully.

Fast foward a few years, and one day I am listening to the radio when I hear the announcer say her name. And I turned to my sister and said, “That singer has the same name as our Whitney Houston!”
My sister rolled her eyes and said “That IS our Whitney Houston!”

No matter how she was in the end, I will always remember her, as bright, funny and sweet. With knobby knees.