"BOBBY'S GIRL: DIANE COOKE rip

It was a combination of  Camelot and The Great Gatzby for me. I was a teenager in love with a neighborhood friend much younger than me. We met at Charron's Blue Sunoco Station  in 1961. Diane was her name.She was bright, beautiful and played the piano. She rode a Morgan horse named Princess and that she was.

My brief interlude with Diana lasted one year and one half. In that time we rode horses and laughed as all youth should.

Her father and mother, Frank and Marjorie Cooke played a pivotal role in my life: The gave me a job at COOKE OPTICAL in North Brookfield, MA in the summers of 1962 - 1963! I was an "optical worker" grinding a lens from German Pyrex for a reflecting mirror that went on a satellite. OMG.

Then, in an overtime endeavor I worked on Frank's pet..a Rolls Royce which went on to win a National First Place prize at the Rolls Royce picnic in Williamsburg.

The Potvin-Cooke relationship transformed me from being a Townie to that of being an educated man. The Cookes  saw to it as Marjorie later confided years later 'We knew your father didn't have the money for a college education of their son: Me!

I was exposed to so much in my relationship with this "WASP Family." I never had eaten shrimp until dining with the Cookes! Their elegant Victorian Mansion piqued my imagination in antiquity. Old Billings Stevens, Marjorie's father, was Mr. Citizen in NB. Mr. Stevens rode in Car #1 on Connie Mack Day, July 10, 1934. In later years, sister Karin showed me all of the memorabilia from this big, big day in baseball history.. the return of Cornellius McGillicuddy - Connie Mack!"

The Steven's Cook klan are good people. I was introduced to so much in life by "Bobby's Girl" and today would mark Diane's 70th birthday. Growing up in a small town can never replace all of my other travels and life's experiences! Thank you COOKE Family!

 

ROBERT LOUIS POTVIN

 A ROLLS-ROYCE ENTHUSIAST TO THIS DAY!