Diane and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary July 20th this year.
“How did you first meet?” You ask.
That’s the standard question, isn’t it?
I was a senior at the University of Nebraska majoring in everything-but-Viet-Nam. Actually, it was English with a specialty in creative writing. I read somewhere that women preferred to marry professional writers to all but professional athletes.
And I was no Joe Namath.
I was walking out of a stinker of a film by Richard Lester, “How I Won The War” staring John Lennon. My roommate, Bob, and I decided a beer would save the evening.
We walked across the street to Der Loaf Und Stein, a German bar and restaurant, a college hangout for the more cultured taste. No loud music or rowdy parties just good food, good people and two bit tap beer on Mondays.
We were still trying to make sense of the movie and needed a place to talk.
We joined several friends from the Farm House fraternity sitting at a long table under the intimate glare of fluorescent lighting.
Bob and I were deep in discussion about how Lester was probably trying to demonstrate the absurdity of war when I heard this amazing voice from the far end of the table.
It was Diane talking a broke EE major she barely knew into borrowing money from the biggest skinflint at Farmhouse so he could buy her a glass of Cutty Sark.
Beer was $.25, but she wanted scotch and not just any scotch. She wanted Cutty.
I fell in love with her voice (not to mention her hutzpah) before I even saw her. She was wearing a red wool coat and scarf. Her glasses were pushed up on top of her hair.
She really looked so incredibly sexy and that voice!
She was with a friend. I have no idea who she was or what she looked like. All I could see or think about was the sexy girl with that amazing voice.
Diane got her Cutty Sark and I think that sealed it for me. I had to get to know this woman. I called her as soon as I got home and asked her out that coming Friday.
She said she was booked. I tried Saturday night. Still booked.
I temped her with the new movie “The Graduate”, which everyone wanted to see. She had me wait while she talked to someone at her Sorority house. The phone was muffled, presumably with her hand.
Later she told me she was looking me up in the yearbook and getting her sisters’ advice. One said, Talks too much.” Another said “Bad reputation.”
Guess she really wanted to see that movie or she liked to talk because she gave me Sunday night.
I put my arm around her during the movie, which was really risqué for the first date. When the popcorn ran out she chewed on my finger. We went back to my place, the caretaker’s cottage I rented to share a bottle of vintage Mateus and a sweet cheese spread.
Bob was gone. He’d moved in with a girl he met.
Diane and I really hit it off and while we were talking on the couch the lone light bulb burning in the house conveniently burned out.
Must have been a sign.
We saw each other every day after that until Spring Break. She went to check out the teaching job she had previously agreed to in Santa Ana, California.
She came back early and stayed with me. Those were the days of separate dorms for men and women. Women in by 11:00 o’clock.
I’d introduced her to my dad over the phone. Dad all dressed up in his sports coat and Stetson Fedora surprised us with a visit. He said this was the only girl I’d ever let him talk to, so he thought he’d better meet her.
He found me at work. Dad, his wife, Mamie, and I went to the house without calling.
My bad. Diane was on her knees cleaning the oven when we walked in.
“You should keep this one.” Dad said, “You can’t hardly get them to do that no more.”
A week later I was on both knees (don’t ask) when I said, “Diane would you marry me?” She said, “Yes, Tom I will.”
We’d known each other six weeks. My, how time flies when you’re in love.
We’ve been through richer and poorer, sickness and health, happy times and not so happy times, soul mates through all time.
Diane stole my heart in that German bar in Lincoln, so long ago. I’ve never wanted it back. And she’s never offered.
Fifty years and counting July 20th, 2018.
Thought you like to know.
Tom Pauley
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