By some amazing quirk of fate, I got to attend the University of Miami. What a revelation in warmth for a girl who had grown up freezing in Duluth, Minnesota. My parents always vacationed on Miami beach and when I was old enough to take several weeks of schoolwork with me, I was taken along - otherwise I had to stay home and Grandma looked after me. As a point of reference, their motel of choice was the Waikiki, where we had a small dark room, which is only memorable because when I got a horrible sunburn I had to spend a good bit of time inside.
In 1967 I graduated high school, my parents sold their pharmacy to the assistant pharmacist, Don Pasek, and we moved to Hollywood, Florida. I have no memory of the actual move, but I can clearly see my dorm room and roommate - Arden Hetson from Teaneck, NJ. No idea what became of her.
In retrospect, the room, in a boys and girls tower, was similar in some ways to a double prison cell. A brand new prison cell. The cinderblock walls were painted brownish-grey with heavy duty grey vinyl accordion closet doors on each side as you entered, built in four drawer dressers, and built in desks with shelves, all covered in dark brown formica. Fitting neatly beyond were two extra-long grey vinyl mattresses on metal platforms. The only outside light came from a single window between the beds with horizontal metal shutters that closed completely with a lever making the place an impenetrable hurricane fortress. Today I would be horrified. Then, I was enchanted. Freedom. Adulthood. The height of luxury!
Because I was six months older than your father, I was a year ahead of him in school. My freshman year was quite the learning experience: learning about pantie raids, learning that you should actually pay close attention in class or you'll be quite surprised when you walk into Intro to Religion to a test, that you fail and, the one I wanted to learn most, learning to smoke cigarettes. I was the height of sophistication - in my own mind.
For some reason, when it came time to register for classes - at the library - with paper slips, some of the classes I needed were filled. I wound up taking some sophomore level classes my first year and then taking the freshman classes the following year. So Daddy and I wound up in Econ 102 (macro-economics I think) together. As this was a required course, it was given in one of the larger amphitheater rooms. Blue plush chairs with pull down seats and desks that folded up and over. Nice. Turns out I really enjoy the "dismal science," which makes some sense as I was studying to be a high school history teacher. As I enjoyed the class, I paid little to no attention to my classmates, even the guy who sat behind me to my right and asked to borrow my notes on at least two occasions. What he looked like and his name were a mystery I didn't feel the need to solve.
He, on the other hand as he told it, was smitten; although the time I decided to put my hair in pig-tails was quite a personal challenge for him. Nevertheless, he persevered. The days and weeks passed and his courage failed him. I didn't seem interested in his academic to personal attempts at contact. Finally, it was the day of the final exam. It was now or never. His plan was to finish and wait for me outside. Unaware, I finished, handed in my paper and went immediately to the bookstore to quit lugging around this three pound tome and get some money back. The sell back book window always had a line a mile long. Not today. I was the only one. I should have been out of there in less than 5 minutes, but that's not how fate planned it. Because there was no one outside, whoever should have been inside was busy with other things. I waited and waited and waited.
Eventually, I noticed this guy very purposefully walking toward me. "He's going to ask me out" I said to myself "how flattering". Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
The date was for dinner that night . He had a friend he could visit who lived in the boy's tower, so he walked me back to the lobby and we went our segregated ways. At the appointed time, I met him downstairs and now we had to walk to the parking lot. He lived off campus so parking wasn't convenient to the dorm. Being as shallow as I was and perhaps still am - hopefully not THAT much - I asked which car, in a fairly empty lot, was his. "The green one". "Yikes", said my brain. The broken down green thing with peeling paint was not what I envisioned for Miss Princess. "Oh, that one?" I asked in as nonchalant a voice as I could muster. "No, the one on the other side." And what to my wondering eye should appear, but an extremely snazzy, late model green Corvette. Wowsers!
Turned out his father ( of course ) was something of a Corvette enthusiast who sometimes had one more car than people who drove, and Jan, probably having this date in mind some days before, had borrowed it hoping to impress me I assume. Worked like a charm.
I remember that night pretty clearly. Dinner at Shoney's Bar-B-Q, which burned down some years later, a Corvette Club meeting, which I found quite boring and may have been the only one he ever went to, and a kiss. I also learned he was Jewish, quite the plus if things got serious. I knew I liked this guy. I learned later that after walking me back he went to see his friend confessing he thought he'd found the one.
And 5 years later we were married. And nine years after that you made your appearance. And that's another story for another time.
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