Kelli 1971
She wasn’t THE prettiest girl I knew, but she was certainly one of them. And to my way of thinking, Kelli was the ultimate Girl Next Door – and I’m sure you would have agreed, if you happened to be (as I was at the time) an athletic, fun-loving, mischievous fourteen-year-old boy. She was a year younger than me; we had lived house-by-house since I was ten, when my family moved to that quiet suburban neighborhood of older homes, wide tree-lined streets, deep lawns and a large public park with its own woods that in spring and summer provided a private retreat. Kelli and I had been friends and playmates since word one; we were both only children of two-working-parent families, and the only kids our age for several blocks around. Her long brown hair …