(The following is the first in a series of updates on our classmates. It will be fun to learn where life has taken everyone):
You knew me as Betty Mecchella, but now everyone calls me
Liz. Both names are nicknames for
Elizabeth, and Betty was the nickname I grew up with. When I was barely 20 years old, a co-worker
asked me my name. When I told her
“Betty”, she remarked that Betty was an old aunt’s name and not the name for a
young girl. She introduced me to all the
staff as “Liz” and it stuck. Now, even
my family calls me Liz.
I live now in Massapequa, in the house in which I was
raised, thought it wasn’t always that way.
After High School, I was briefly married, but we were young and
dumb—often a lethal combination— and the marriage ended. I waitressed and held a few other jobs that
were unsatisfying. Then I went back to
school for my beautician’s license and worked as a hairdresser for several
years.
I also became a licensed heavy equipment operator at a
school in Pennsylvania. Driving dozers,
loaders, backhoes and graders gave me a feeling of strength and helped me
overcome some fears. But in the late 80s
my Dad became ill with colon cancer and I returned home to Massapequa to help
care for him.
My Dad was a teacher in the Massapequa School District. He taught Spanish, French, Latin, German,
Russian, English, Math and Music. He
taught for a few years at MHS and Berner, but ended up at Parkside JHS. He was also a student tenor at the
Metropolitan Opera House in NYC and he loved to sing! But it wasn’t always easy to have your Dad
teaching in the same district that you attended. On the occasional Friday night, my Dad had
the guys over for cards and beer.
Unfortunately the “guys” were the principals and Vice Principals of
BHS---Donald Woodworth, Mr. Wachsmuth and Mr. Sabolinski, as well as the
Principal of Parkside, Mr. McJury. I
didn’t like that they were there—it scared the crap out of me!
When I returned home to care for Dad, I went back to
hairdressing because it was easy to get a job.
My father passed in 1989 and that summer I took up windsurfing. A year later, I met my husband, Rob, at Heckscher
State Park. I was setting up at the bay
there, when he walked by, stopped, and made a “screeching to a halt” noise,
backed up and said, “Helloooooo!” We
became the best of friends and I asked him out that October. He hadn’t wanted to ask me out because he
didn’t think I would say yes. We married
in 1996 and I have never been happier!
We took care of my mother for more than 8 years as she
battled diabetes and several cancers.
When she passed in 2005, I inherited the house. It is situated on a double lot on a corner and
the land in the back stretches back for 220 feet. We affectionately call it Recco Farms and we
sell veggies all season long. We grow lettuce,
escarole, Swiss chard, radishes, beets, kohlrabi, cauliflower, potatoes,
onions, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, green beans, cucumber, and zucchini. Every
May, my brother and I hold a plant sale and this year I will have 500 tomato
plants ready to go. Most of my customers
come back every year and I get to meet so many interesting people.
Farming is in my blood.
My mother’s family had a farm in the Southwestern corner of Pennsylvania,
and since my Dad was a teacher with summers off, we spent weeks at the farm
each year. I loved being there and have
never forgotten my grandmother’s garden.
In the middle of the garden was a tunnel of grape vines and at the end
was the barn, the chicken coop and the dog house. The resident dog was a boxer we called Moose,
short for Mooseface. My mother brought
her love of gardening to our home in Massapequa with lots of fruit trees and a
big garden.
My husband and I still enjoy wind surfing together. We used to go to Bonaire every winter to
spend a couple of weeks windsurfing. The
conditions are perfect there for that sport.
But now that we are taking care of my father in law, who is suffering
from congestive heart failure and other ailments, we stay closer to home and
enjoy surfing, stand-up paddle boarding, and kayaking more locally.
Looking back over the years, I think if I had to do it all
over again, I would listen more and talk less.
I would have gotten better grades in school and I wouldn’t have put up
with a lot of the crap that people dealt out.
But I am happy now and enjoy my life and I can’t wait to see everyone at
our group 60th birthday next year!
written by Carolyn Hammer through email interviews with Liz.
