She looked like a cross between Cleopatra, Cher and maybe the Mona Lisa, too. She sported a classic late 60s look with dark blue eye shadow and long, thick, black hair that she would painstakingly straighten every day. He was short in stature, and had been compared to every decent looking actor on the shorter side, from Jack Nicholson to Bob Newhart. She was a Jewish girl from the suburbs of Boston; he an Irish Catholic boy from the Midwest. She still listened to Malt Shop music; he was a Motown boy through and through. Perhaps they would agree on the brilliancy of the Beatles, though he would surely prefer the psychedelic version of the Fab Four, while she would stand by their clean cut boy image of earlier days. He had left Ohio to see the world via the US Navy and though he did have fun in cities like Paris, there really was no place like Boston for a young sailor, at least in his eyes.
They met at the Enlisted Man’s Club in Charlestown, Ma. My mom’s friend Paula had persuaded my mom to go there. My mother always described her younger self as a “Goody-Two-Shoes”, so I imagine it took some convincing on Paula’s part to actually get my mom out the door. But out the door she went with her long black hair tucked into a blonde wig.
He spotted her at the club and wanted to talk to this curvy blonde woman. It took some nerve and probably a couple of cans of Schlitz for him to saunter on over. He started chatting and when he felt the time was right, put his arm around her. Of course, old Slick ran into a little glitch-as his arm went up and over her head, he hit her wig and knocked it off.
I like to imagine my mom giving him a good slap at this point, but I know her well enough to know that wasn’t the case. Good thing to, because Dad gallantly threw his jacket over her head and escorted her to the restroom!Somehow this goofy character managed to make mom smile and she actually talked to him when she came out of the restroom. Soon they were on their first date together. He wasn’t like other guys, for example, most guys didn’t take their own transistor radios with them on dates. Dad did. He put it right on the table in the middle of their first dinner together. Mom’s friend Paula was surprised that he got a first date, but a second date, well that was baffling. Paula and the gang warmed to my dad, but it took many months. “He was just so goofy, but your mom really saw something in him…”It took some time for this strange Midwestern boy to win over Mom’s family, too. But somehow he did. And now he’s a family favorite. Everyone loves him.
My dad saw something in my mom that was a mixture of smarts and naïveté. Though he was no bad boy, he’d been out in the real world. Yes, she was a girl of the 60s, but she led a fairly sheltered teenhood. Once on a date at the drive-in my parents were approached by a couple of hippies who asked if they “had any papers.” My sweet mom said, “I think we do.” She got out of the car, opened the trunk and handed the hippies a copy of The Boston Globe!
On November 28, 1971, the Motown loving sailor and the Goody-Two Shoes married in Marblehead, Ma. Dad moved out of his roach infested bachelor pad and Mom left her parents’ home in Malden. They took an apartment where I’m sure the transistor radio figured prominently. I picture them in their youth-her long, black straight hair and his long sideburns, thick mustache and polyester shirts-in my mind they are the iconic 70s couple dancing the nights away in their small living room. Whether they were dancing to The Commodores or the Carpenters doesn’t really matter, what matters is that they were, and still are, awesome.
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-Inspired by the book My Parents Were Awesome: Before Fanny packs and Minivans, They Were People Too. By Eliot Glazer
Also inspired by my parents of course!! Happy Anniversary. :)
