It is the only marriage (Laughs), and I beat the odds, but I have a friend who beat me with more than I (Laughing). Jim is my first marriage. I had many men that I dated but it was never the right match.

My roommate in nursing school said, “You’re just too fussy!” (Laughs) I said, “I know what I want. I want a man I can look up to, and respect, and feel comfortable and can talk.”

But you know, I feel like I am a happy person. I didn’t get into when I married Jim, but Jim was a turning point in my life.

I found someone who was the other part of me that made me feel complete and he understood me and we both came from a similar background. Our parents didn’t have very much money and we both wanted to go to school and further ourselves. I could have been married a couple times but I just knew it wasn’t right. I had received other proposals. I couldn’t understand. One man even started to follow me and it really upset me.

Actually, I was working at the VA and I was taking a course in written case analysis. When he’d come in, you know, and I thought he was kind of funny cause the guys would make comments about him. He was a good teacher and he was very likeable.

I was going to Scotland for a compromise host to Sterling Castle. I told him why I was going. I went and then he said he would have a party – he usually has a party for all his graduate students, so he sent an invitation or something and I went.

I asked somebody else to go and he didn’t want to go. Then there was another guy who was in the class who was an old sea captain and he wanted to take me out that night and I didn’t want to go out with him.

I thought Jim was married and then when I got there he said he was washing the floor. I said, “Why are you washing the floor for?”

He said, “Well, I am the only one here!”

I found out that he was widowed. I never knew that. So then I wrote him a thank you note for having the party because I used to do that with my students.

He called me to go out on St. Patrick’s Day and I said I was busy. He called me at work! I said, “Well what about tonight?”

He said, “Well I am teaching.”

I said, “Well how about a rain check?”

He said, “I’ll give you a call,” and we went out that Saturday night.

He came in green suit and I had a green dress and I said, “We look like two worms going out!”

So we went for dinner and then he took me dancing and then we went to Marianne’s. I had just moved to Santa Clara and I didn’t really know any places. If anywhere I would go up to San Francisco.

So we went in and there were wall these people, World War I veterans dancing! We were the youngest people in there so we kind of laughed. Then he took me out again, he called me. We went to see Tootsie and in that movie there was a song, you know, “Maybe It Will Be You” and somehow I got this funny feeling.

I remember he wore a black raincoat and he had a black hat on and all I could think of was the flasher. Do you remember the poster for the Museum of Modern Art in New York? Expose yourself to art, yeah! (Laughs)

So one night after we were dating I told his daughters. Well, they got hysterical! That was it! So, I was married.

I said I didn’t want to marry an old fart and his daughters said, “Oh, he’s an old fart!” I was probably 53. I was 55 when I married him, but I asked him to go Dutch treat to the black and white ball because I wanted to go. If he’d of said no I would have gone by myself cause I loved to dance and I wanted to go. So, that really started it.

We were married October 1985. Our birthdays are two days apart so we were married on the 12th, my birthday is the 14th and his is the 16th so we celebrated the whole thing.

I probably didn’t talk about a lot of things in New York, but I enjoyed New York. I went to the theatre a lot. I had some good friends. I always had friends.

Back when we were married 75% of the people were nurses because I keep up friendships with people I’ve worked with and I move around so much.

Each part of my life was sort of a stepping stone and it opened a new avenue. Like when I worked at U C I worked at the dental school and had some wonderful professors there. The head of the program was Norwegian but he worked in Denmark, and I worked with Americans who were fine physicians.

The physicians I worked with at Stanford were very good – the old Stanford, it became Pacific Medical Center. I dated an anesthesiologist there who was about 16 years older than I was for a while and then he died when I was in graduate school. That was kind of a shock.

I always dated somebody. But, I wouldn’t go out with policeman. I never wanted to go out with policemen because they’d come to the emergency room.