My parents met in a bar - it was a two story bar in Newport, RI.
My dad had an unexpected free night from Naval OCS (Officer’s Candidate School), I think because Nixon’s daugher was getting married or something, and was there with his buddies from the base.
My mom was there with a bunch of her teaching friends. She was supposed to be out on a date with the guy she was seeing at the time, but decided to go out with her girlfriends instead. She and her friends started out on the first floor, went up to the second floor, and then came back down to the first floor. Mind you she did notice my dad when they were ont he first floor, since my dad was (WAS) a real cutie.
She was sitting at the bar when she heard someone behind her say:
“You’re not leaving yet, are you?”
That would be my dad.
Sweet, ain’t it? For the longest time, they didn’t say they met in a bar, just that they “met in Newport”. But, the story of their first date is much better.
My father served in England, helping to rescue pilots out of the North Sea and English Channel during WW II. After the war ended he decided to tour what was left of of the Continent. He was dining in the common area one morning, while staying at a youth hostel in Northern Europe. Across the table was another chap wearing some shorts and eating his breakfast as well. A girl who was cooking some oatmeal at the stove swung around to dish out a serving into her bowl on the table. Somehow, she managed to dump the pot’s scalding contents all over the other chap’s exposed thigh. (A little more to the right and I would have had two fewer cousins.)
This poor sod grabbed his leg with both hands and pinched down on the nerve to stop himself from passing out due to the pain. My father and some others rushed him to hospital. Out of gratitude, this guy brought my father back to his parent’s home in Copenhagen, Denmark. Across the dining table was my very beautiful young teenage mother.
And that’s where I came from! A red hot thigh combined with the old “wanna see my sister” sort of routine. Drama, human travail, the fog of war and young love, all in one widdle post.
Gundy, that, “Excuse me…I’m lost, and I don’t know the way to your apartment.” line is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Give your dad a kiss for being such a wit.
My father was a merchant marine (engineer) and developed an acute case of appendicitis in Shanghai.
My mother was a secretary for the same shipping concern and her boss suggested that she visit the poor young English lad recuperating in the hospital.
My father always used to claim that she took advantage of him while he was still weak.
Trite as it may sound, my parents met at church. After services one Sunday, Mom got grabbed by Dad’s pushy cousin, drug through a hedge, and shoved in his face. Dad, who was just back froom 'Nam and had been hearing all about all the nice girls at church he should meet ever since he got off the plane, was less than polite.
A few months later, though, when his cousin quit pushing and shoving at him, he called her. They were engaged a few months later, and married a few months after that.
My mom dropped out of college halfway through, but then decided in early August that she wanted back in. She’d lost her place at her original school but had a cousin on the admissions committee at Akron U who snuck her in against the rules. A couple weeks after classes started she went to an organizational meeting for a litereary magazine which never got off the ground, but she met a young grad stuent there and the rest is history.
I don’t have the exact story but I can piece it together. Dad enlisted in the US Navy in 1942 and was stationed in Pearl Harbor for a time. Mom was born in Minneapolis but she pretty much grew up in Honolulu and earned extra money as a teenager by working in a library. I can only assume that’s where they met.
My dad-to-be was in the navy, home on leave in Long Beach California. He and my future-mom met on a blind date, he took her to an italian restaurant for a spagetti dinner. My mom, who was 19 years old, had never eaten spagetti IN HER LIFE!!! She made a mess of it, and herself I hear, but it endeared her to him as he patiently tried to teach her how to roll it on her fork. They married shortly afterwards.
I’m gonna cheat and tell about my grandparents because it’s a better story. Not much story really. When my grandmother’s family moved east they ended up attending the same church as my grandfather and his family. they were both around 19 at the time. The story part is that my grandmother had a lovelorn sister who would fall passionately in love with boys who broke her heart and mope about them for months. When my grandmother met my grandfather she thought, “Gee, he’s a nice boy. Rita should date a nice boy like that!” and proceeded to try and fling them together at every opportunity. However, as my grandfather explained he was instantly smitten with my grandma. It took some work on his part to bring her around to his way of thinking but once she figured out he was the one they were together for 48 years.
How they met is boring - introduced by mutual friends.
Their first date was more interesting, since my mom puked during it. It’s amazing that there was a second date. My dad took my mom flying, not knowing she was prone to motion-sickness. A slight bank of the plane started the problem.
I’d like to know my Dad’s version of the story, but he died when I was 9 so this is my Mom’s version…
Her 1st husband had recently left her for his secretary. Mom was distraught over the loss and was walking through a dept. store (formerly known as May Co.). My Dad was a salesman in the Men’s Dept. He saw her walk past his dept. when he said to himself, “I’m going to marry that woman”. He followed her through the store until she agreed to go out to dinner with him.
My parents went to high school together. He’s a year older than she is, and he was friends with one of her friend’s older brothers. They dated for a long time, broke up, married, and they’ve been together since then. Yet…they scoff at the idea of me staying together with whoever I date in high school, which really perplexes me considering their own story.
My father was one of those guys that had a horrible family life and long hair. He was in a band. He didn’t really go to school. But he was deep, cute and artistic (says Mom)
My mom’s parents were always going out of the country and leaving her home alone, and so she had parties. My Dad happened to come to one of these parties, and when the whole thing was over, he was the only one to stay and help Mom clean up. She made him an omellete and gave him some kind of African tribal knife so he’d have an excuse to see her again.
Grandparents: Grandpa was a circuit preacher. He would travel by horse and buggy to churches that didn’t have a preacher and hold service. Far from home, in this one town, he was told that there was a mean widower who beat his family when he was drunk. Grandpa went by to talk to the man (my granny’s step-father). The stepfather was belligerent and Grandpa tried to commiserate by telling how Grandpa’s wife had died and left him to care for 3 kids alone. Stepfather said “Just take her, she’s not worth nothin’” Thin, obviously beaten yet still angry stood my granny. Grandpa took her and they drove the long way (several days) back to his hometown where they where immediately married. First child born 9 months and 5 days later. (The town counted.) They were married for 50 years.
Parents: USO dance, Dad back from Korea and freshly divorced. Mom 19 and pretty. The first time Dad met her father, grandpa put his shotgun across his lap and asked Dad what his intentions were. Mom and Dad were married within the month.
Hubby and I met in Sunday School (him 34, me 25) He liked to argue with the fundamentalists just to watch their faces turn red. Ah, true love!
I really don’t know - I need to ask Mom. Dad was 4 years older than Mom, and when he graduated from high school, he went into a Jesuit seminary since he was the only son and all. After a month, he figured out he didn’t have the calling. Then he joined the Marines. I’m assuming they had known each other from going to the same church, because they lived in two different neighborhoods in east Baltimore.
Anyway, they married a year and a half after Dad enlisted, and I was born about a year and a half after that. They had just over 50 years together before Dad had a heart attack and died.
