It's 50 days away from our 50th wedding anniversary. I thought I would share something each day about our journey together. Some are stories told over and over again, so bear with me. I do need to start at the beginning once again.
It was January 1975. I was still living at home with my parents in East Hartland. I had been working at Connecticut General Life Insurance Company in Bloomfield for a little over 3 years, straight out of high school. For most of my life, I have avoided the subject when people talked about what college they attended as I felt a stigma of being a lowly high school graduate, but in my old age, I cannot care anymore, and I actually did fine without it. I had intended to work for a year to save up money to go to college (Although a spoiled only child, my parents did not intend on funding it. Dad thought college mostly taught common sense and he said I had that.) I told my guidance counselor that I was going to work for a year to save money and then apply for a college in White Plains, NY to study advertising. He told me I would never go if I started working. I didn't believe him, but he was right.
About twenty miles away, George, who had grown up in Norfolk, was living in Torrington and working at UOP Aerospace in Bantam. He had served in the Air Force and was an air traffic control operator in Vietnam at the air base in Pleiku. He loved being an air traffic controller best of all the jobs he ever had. He attended college on the GI bill majoring in history, considering being a teacher. He was 28 years old and I was 22--boy, does that sound young now. At the time, I was wondering if I would ever meet Mr. Right. You've heard of the comparisons between Lincoln and Kennedy, I presume. Well, George and the guy I went out with before him both were one of 13 kids in the younger end of the family, both had mustaches, both had served in the Air Force and in Vietnam. They were both older than me. If you want to get crazy, both had 6 letters in their first names, brown hair, were around the same height, and had good senses of humors. Later I told myself that God had said, you almost have the right guy.
Back in those days, Friday nights were the night that singles usually went out to the local lounges. In our area we had the Dial Tone Lounge (a unique experience where you had phones at your tables and could call a stranger at another table to start a conversation). There was a place in Canton, I can't remember the name, for some reason I think the Cracker Barrel--the chairs were barrels and they played old black and white silent movies on the walls. There were quite busy places in the Hartford area attracting a ton of people. In Winsted there were bars, but in Torrington, there was the Springtree Lounge. To me it seemed like a more upscale place as opposed to the bars, and it had live music.
I was paired up with my friend's cousin to go out on Friday nights, yes, honestly hoping to meet someone. I had just gotten back from a road trip to Michigan to visit my closest friend. Her sister and I had made the trek. Meanwhile back home, my Friday night friend was anxiously waiting for me to return, expecting me to go out that night. I was still recovering from the trip and didn't want to go out at all. She begged and pleaded and I gave in. And that was the night on January 31, 1975, I met George Washington.
He asked me to dance and I don't know if I would exactly say it was love at first sight, but I thought, "There's something different about this guy." He asked for my phone number and I reached for a notepad I had in my purse--coincidentally it looked like a dollar bill (another sign?).
He didn't want to ask me out for the next day. He thought that was too assuming, but he called and asked me to go for a ride on Sunday and I went.
From then on we met at the Springtree Lounge or went out every weekend. I don't remember exactly how, but "Mandy" by Barry Manilow became 'our song'.
Neither of us dated anyone else since. I did get asked out, ironically around February 22. I told the guy I was seeing someone else. I don't know why, but the guy asked me who had asked me out. When I answered, he must have thought I could lie better than saying, "George Washington".
Something I haven't shared but might as well...there is often this awkwardness about a first kiss. George did not want to be too forward, but he was also a bit shy about it. As we stood on my front step after our third date, he pointed in the sky and said, "Look! There's Halley's comet!" and as I looked up, he stole a kiss. Obviously, whenever anyone mentions Halley's comet, it has a different meaning for us.
