Our First Kiss: Our Last Kiss

By Joseph P. Badame

Phyliss Crudo and Joseph Badame spent the early parts of their separate lives moving around Southern New Jersey. Eventually, he at fourteen, and she at thirty, wind up in the same classroom as student and teacher for two years. There was an immediate rapport between the two. After he graduated from her school, she became his mentor through a successful high school career. Their friendship developed into love and they eventually married eleven years after they met. Their marriage lasted for forty-five years. The story tells of the growth of their love and describes their first kiss and their last kiss at the end of their lives together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph P. Badame
• Release date: Nov 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311404534

Joseph P. Badame

Joseph Badame is a retired architect living in New Jersey. He is spending his remaining years working on projects to honor his late wife who was a master teacher. This book is one of his endeavors to pay tribute to her memory.

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Copyright © 2014 by Joseph P. Badame

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Written by

Joseph P. Badame

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by Joseph P. Badame

OUR FIRST KISS - OUR LAST KISS

As a child and adolescent, I spent my first fourteen years of life at various locations roaming around Southern New Jersey and eventually settled down in a row house in Camden with my mother and my step-father. At the end of those fourteen years, I found myself a student in an eighth grade classroom in the nearby Cramer Junior High School.

Phyliss Crudo spent the first thirty years of her life at various locations similarly roaming around Southern New Jersey and eventually settled down in a single family house in Pennsauken with her mother and father. At the end of those thirty years she found herself a teacher in that eighth grade classroom in the very same Cramer Junior High School.

The chance occurrence of our materializing in that same classroom as teacher and student was to change our lives profoundly. Neither of us knew just how profoundly.

The next two years were a wonderful experience for me of learning subject matter and about life in general from a woman I was to consider the best teacher I had ever met before or since. Our marvelous teacher/student collaboration ended when I moved on to high school.

The termination of that affiliation was sad for both of us. But, our association did not end, but rather it transformed into a sincere trusting friendship as our two families became acquainted and Miss Crudo became my friend and my mentor. Probably a more accurate and powerful description would be she became my Paraclete – a word that has religious connotations of a strong advocate or helper who is unwavering in her support.

Those high school years witnessed a gradual and steady building of the harmony between Phyliss and me. Our friendship gradually grew into a since fondness for each other. We were truly