A Local Modern-Day Fairy Tale
Reported by Erik Smith
Web produced by Rachel L. Miller

Patty O'Connor and Denny Flynn first began their romance in the eighth grade.

A romance that began in an awkward dance in the eighth grade endured half a lifetime of separation and finally culminated in a story book reunion over 40 years later.

It is the story of a girl named Patty O'Connor and a red-haired boy named Denny Flynn who grew up together in a Royal Oak neighborhood, fell in love when they danced the night away in junior high.

Patty and Denny dancing in junior high.

"It was the eighth-grade graduation dance, I was too shy to ask her, and by the time I did ask her, she already had a date," Denny says. "So I went to the dance without a date, and danced every dance with her and her date got mad and left, so I got to take her home."

Patty and Denny dated all through high school, but in 1961, Denny joined the U.S. Navy. They thought about getting married, but decided to wait. As always, time and distance took their toll on the two young lives.

Denny in his U.S. Navy uniform.

"I got out in October of 1962, the day of the Cuban missile crisis, and I came back," Denny says. "I stayed in California about six months, and I came back, and I asked somebody about Patty, and they said, 'Oh, she's engaged.'

"I thought, oh, darn. We both got on with our lives."

Patty married someone else and so did Denny, who moved west to Colorado. Time passed, two lives were lived without contact, and both their marriages ultimately floundered.

While he was out west, Denny found his dream car in Colorado springs, a 1971 Chevy, so he carefully restored it and in 1996, he drove it back to Royal Oak to visit with his parents. That was the year of the first Woodward Dream Cruise.

Little did Denny know along Woodward Avenue that day that fate was about to get his motor really running.

"A guy saw the Colorado tags and said, 'You came all the way from Colorado for this cruise?'

"I said, 'Well, I grew up here and went to school here and everything.' And I don't know what made me say it. I says, 'And while I'm here, I want to check on an old girlfriend.'

"He said, 'What's your name?' I said, 'Denny Flynn.'"

Denny found out they went to school together.

"His wife perks up," Denny says. "'I'm Mary Beth Connell. I was one of your sister's best friends.'"

The woman wanted to know which girl Denny was talking about.

"I said, 'Well, I don't know what her married name is. Her maiden name was Patty O'Connor.'

"She said, 'Oh, she got a divorce two years ago and lives in Whitmore Lake.'"

It didn't take long. It was just a few heartbeats later that Patty and Denny had a date for dinner. The childhood sweethearts would meet again in the glow of a August sunset.

Patty's photo had its place in Denny's wallet through the years.

"We were eating dinner. I said, 'Patty, I've got something to show you,'" Denny says. "I pulled out my wallet. I had laminated her high school picture. I carried it in my wallet all those years."

Patty says that by that point, marriage was "sort of like a forgone conclusion" between the two.

"I think I knew that night at the lake," Denny says. "The sun was setting behind her. I had the harpoon right through me. And I got back here and I said, 'Now, I asked you in 1961 to marry me. Have you made up your mind yet?'"

Denny was reunited with Patty through this car and the Woodward Dream Cruise.

After the wedding vows were finally exchanged, they drove off in the red 1971 Chevy. And, yes, the classic car will be in the Woodward Dream Cruise this year, next year, the year after, because this is, after all, a fairy tale.

The tale of the Snow White of St. Mary's School and her Prince Charming who arrived one day in that shiny Chevrolet. And you just have to believe they'll live happily ever after.

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