That first date

Oh I should have known better.  
Our first date was on Friday April 1, 1977. 

 April Fools Day!!

We had joked about going to San Diego the previous weekend.  Neither of us had gone of course.  But, all the same when you live in Phoenix, San Diego is a wonderful escape from the heat!  Everyone wanted to be in San Diego especially during summer.  Plus it was California in the 70's!  What could be better?

There was much harassing of each other between scooping ice cream and me decorating & selling ice cream cakes.  He insisted that he "had come to pick me up" for San Diego but that I wasn't there.  Of course I knew he hadn't.  Me insisting "I was oh sooooo embarrassed to be standing on curb with my suit case ready for the trip and he never came by."   And so it went for nearly 3 hours.  Until he finally said do you want to go to a movie with me on Friday to make up for not going to San Diego.   I though he was joking!  Really!  Then the pit of my stomach said wait a minute I think he really means it!  I told him I would think about it and let him know on Thursday...

I immediately drove over to see my dear friend Anna, who uttered those fateful words...  "Oh what will one date hurt".   But, I can't date him!  He is younger than me!  He is from a clearly more affluent family than my family!!  And he is Jewish for crying out loud!!  And so it went on and on in circles, as I sat with Anna for over an hour trying to find a way out of the "date" but alas to no avail.   There really was no way out, as I did kind of want to know more about this guy.  He sure could talk a lot, unlike most of the guys I knew.  He was very smart and interesting and I did have fun when we worked together so why not.  It was only 1 date anyway and he did make me laugh!

So I devised a plan: my sister Cheri would be my back up.  You always have to have a back up and Cheri was it!!   On Friday I got ready for my "date" and if he didn't show up Cheri and I would go to the movies instead.  It would be my treat.  A movie didn't cost an arm and a leg back then.  It was a great plan!!  Then he called and asked where I lived. I told him, and that is when he said he would see me in a little while.  Remember this is pre-cell phone and pre-GPS!  Our family had 1 phone and it was attached to the wall in the family room.  Panic time!!

Still doubting, I stood behind the curtains in the living room peering out the window to see if he would actually show up.  Then very slowly I saw him coming down the street.  He was driving his mother's silver Oldsmobile Cutlas.   A very nice car!!  It was the nicest car I had ever seen on my street before!  Oh I knew I was in over my head.  So I ran down the hall and pushed Cheri out to the living room to answer the door!!  Great plan!!

Off we went to the China Doll Chinese restaurant and to see the movie Rocky.  I was too afraid to touch anything in the car.  It was so clean inside and smelled like perfume.  I was a nervous wreck!  This was the nicest car I had ever seen!  Remember my Mustang that I did my own repair work on???   This was soooo NOT that car!!

It was a Friday during Lent.  I couldn't have meat.  Yikes! I had only eaten out in a restaurant a handful of times in my entire life!  What was I going to order for dinner in a Chinese restaurant that didn't have meat?  I had never even eaten Chinese food much less eaten in a Chinese restaurant! But here I was on a Friday night during Lent in a Chinese restaurant trying to order a non-meat dish that I could identify the ingredients. You see the closest thing to fish on a Friday night for my family was tuna fish from a can or frozen fish sticks- yuck!  And we certainly didn't eat out on a Friday during Lent or any other Friday for that matter.  I had my first shrimp that night and then felt guilty as it was a little more expensive then the chicken dish. "Catholic Guilt" at its finest.  Then I had to explain Lent to Jeff.  Now that took some doing.  I am very sure I didn't do a good job of explaining Lent.   I was too nervous.  And I didn't know if he understood a word I said.   But I guess it didn't matter because he asked me out for the following weekend.  So I must have said something right...

Thus we began a 6 1/2 year courtship, oh sure it was an unusual courtship as he was away at Yale in Connecticut and I was in Arizona for 4 of those 6 1/2 years.  Then again, it seemed most things with Jeff were a bit unusual right from the beginning.  Through these years we both finished college and got jobs and I even attended graduate school at N.A.U. in Flagstaff!  Finally my dream of going away to school had come true, better late than never!

Here we are before Jeff's senior High School Prom in May of 1979

Don't you just love all the hair we both had?

Here we are at a Birthday for both of us given by Jeff's Aunt Joyce

Our birthdays are 3 years and 3 days apart.

This was taken in my parents living room on one of Jeff's visits home from college.  

He was at Yale and I was in graduate school at this point at N.A.U.

          This was taken at the Harvard vs Yale football game November 1982                                                                            

"The Game" 

I flew into New York and we drove up to Boston for the game with 

a bunch of Jeff's friends and roommates.  It was freezing!!!!  

For you trivia nuts, this was the game where 

M.I.T inflated a balloon on the field during the game.

Here is the link to the news reports of "The Hack."

Notice the man in the full length mink coat on the left center part of the screen?

A MAN in a full length fur!   We didn't even wear coats in Arizona much less a fur coat!!

 

Yale lost 21-7

So as you can see strange things seemed to be happening from the very beginning. 

 "The Hack" was a huge thing at the time.   Imagine how crazy things progressed from here because we were not even married at this point!  This truly is the beginning of the unusual things that have happened surrounding Jeff  over the past many years...