Roland John Passaro looks back at his time growing up in the 1950s with a sort of wistful tenderness, especially when it comes to the time he spent with his first crush, Elaine Hall.
The two met in the ninth grade in 1950 at what was then called Harrison-Morton Junior High School in Allentown, Pa. It wasn’t hard for them to get along. He was a star athlete — the pitcher on the baseball team and a shooting guard and forward on the basketball team. She was a cheerleader.
Together, they danced away many Saturday nights at the Y.M.C.A., went swimming in the community pool in the summers and attended sock hops and house parties. They lived only four blocks from each other and walked home together after school.
Mr. Passaro was also Ms. Hall’s first crush, but, as he said, “there was somewhat of an innocence about the period.” They didn’t even go so far as to kiss, and, over time, the attraction ran its course. After graduating from junior high school and switching over to Allentown High School for the 11th grade, they saw each other less and less. They were in a class of about 900 students, and they had very different schedules. He dated other girls, and she met the man she would marry at 18.
After graduating from high school in 1953, they went their separates ways. Mr. Passaro, 88, became a player for the minor-league baseball team Winston-Salem Red Birds from 1957 to 1961, retiring after suffering a spinal injury. He graduated from what was then called Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., with a bachelor’s degree in English. There, he met the woman that would become his wife.
Ms. Hall, also 88, worked for the local newspaper, The Morning Call, until she retired in 2001 as the director of advertising and business development. The paper covered Mr. Passaro’s stints in professional baseball, so she was able to keep up with his career for those four years.
