First Date

I don’t remember that I ever had an official first date.  We would get together as groups of guys, a bunch of girls, whatever.  Probably the first formal date I had was with Dorothy, my future wife.  We started going together my senior year in high school. 

There was a street in North Minneapolis called West Broadway, which was sort of a mini-Main Street.  A typical date in those days would have been simply to go for a walk on West Broadway, and we would go from one end of West Broadway to the other end.  We would see all of our friends walking too.  Because nobody had any MONEY back then, none of us could stop anywhere and eat anything.  We just kept walking.  That’s what was usually done then.  Occasionally we would go to downtown Minneapolis and go to one of the larger motion picture theatres, at a premium price of 35 cents, so you didn’t do that very often.  That was sort of a biggie.

I had one memorable date with Dorothy when we were in high school.  Somehow or another, I came into a huge amount of money which was $10.  So I told Dorothy we were going to go out on the town.  We went to the Nicolete Hotel in downtown Minneapolis.  There was a singer who was popular at the time whose name was Fran Warren.  It was a dinner show and we sat right up front by the dance floor.  In my mind at that time, there was no dinner that could cost more than $10, and so I figured whatever the price was I was going to be able to cover it.  Dorothy ordered an entree that was a shrimp entrée.  I ordered the T-bone steak.  And here both of us were 17 and I ordered a Tom Collins and, I don’t know, I think Dorothy had something too, but I don’t remember.  A gal came around to snap a photograph and luckily we chose not to do that.  Anyway, we saw the dinner show and then the waitress came with the bill.  Now I had the $10 and I knew that was going to be enough.  And the bill was $13.65 !  And I looked at Dodie and I said, “We are in deep, deep trouble!”  Dodie was working at that time, at the forum in downtown Minneapolis, and she had in her purse all of $4.   So with the $14 we could cover the bill, and we left a 35 cent tip.  And then we walked home ….. which was about 7 miles!

Popped the Question

After Dodie and I had gone together 3 or 4 months, starting in high school, I don’t think the question ever HAD to be popped.  We just had a mutual understanding that we knew we were going to get married.  It just happened.  We had already been going together for several months when I made the impulsive move to join the Navy and started boot camp in September of 1951.  All this time Dodie and I were corresponding.  She came up one time to see me while I was in boot camp.  I went to Jacksonville for 8 weeks, and then to Memphis, and we were writing every day and I said "Why don’t you come down here and we’ll get married?".  We were married at the Navy chapel in Memphis on the base.  We had a reception at a chicken & ribs joint.  This was 1952.  Dodie brought down to Memphis her maid of honor and my best man and we had 12 or 14 people in total.  We just walked in and asked for a table for 12 or 14 people, and that was our wedding reception.

Dorothy knows that I am a little bit nuts.  She knows that I am impulsive.

Kids

 A couple years after we were married it happened.  Dorothy got pregnant and our first child was born while I was still in the Navy.  We had 5 kids and, but for one miscarriage, we would have had 6: Patti (1954), Tom (1958), Jim (1959), Kristi (1961), and Terri (1963), all 5 kids born in the span of 9 years. They were reasonably equally spaced. Patti is an office manager for Boise State University.  She is one of my kids that is still kicking herself in the pants for not getting herself a bachelor’s degree.  Tom has a degree in accounting and a masters in taxation, and now he is running two soccer sporting good stores.  Jim is an attorney in Walnut Creek.  He has his undergraduate degree from UCLA and his law degree from UC Berkeley.  He is practicing real estate law.   Kristi is working at eBay, managing travel (another one of my kids who is kicking herself for not focusing more on school).  And the last one is Terri who graduated from San Jose State.  She is now in human resources with Dreyer’s Ice Cream.   They are all here in the Bay Area, except Patti who is in Boise.