Tag: #younglove

A Farewell Dinner and a Letter

A Farewell Dinner and a Letter

High School graduation had come and gone, and the month of June was racing by. In just a few days, I would report to West Point. For our last night together, Cathy had the idea for an “adult” farewell dinner at her house. Never mind that we were just kids of 17 and 18.

How she was able to make it all happen, remains a bit of a mystery to me to this day. In addition to planning our dinner she asked her folks if we could have a bottle of wine with the meal. They agreed, and then checked with my folks to make sure they were OK with it. Amazingly, they agreed as well.

It was finally the last night in Ottawa. I arrived at Cathy’s just as her mom and dad were departing, along with her sisters, Cindy and Bonnie. I don’t remember where they went – maybe the movies or a drive in. All I knew is we would have the house to ourselves.

We opened the wine, a straw covered Chianti bottle, and sipped on it as Cathy finished cooking. She was making spaghetti with a meat sauce, a meal of hers I love to this day. As we sat down for dinner, she also brought out a salad.

Dinner was Served, Along With a Nice Chianti

It’s funny, in my minds eye looking back, we were both adults, and also kids playing at being adults. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s how I remember the night. It was somber and sad, and fun all at the same time. We finished dinner eventually and continued to sip on the wine until it too was gone. We talked about everything, and nothing. We talked of the future and when we hoped to see each other again. We promised to write… and finally, it was time for me to go home. We said our goodbyes, and then said them again several more times. Finally there was a long hug, a last kiss and I drove off into the night, with a crazy collection of mixed up feelings inside. I didn’t sleep much that night.

The next morning arrived. Normally, Dad would have had us up at oh-dark-thirty to depart, but for whatever reason, he decided to break the trip to New York into two days, so we were leaving around mid morning. We were finishing packing the car when my old buddy Howard showed up. We’d known each other since kindergarten, and he wasn’t going to let me escape without saying goodbye. We too promised we’d write each other when we could.

At this point, mom, dad, my two sisters, Howard and I were all standing in the driveway. As we were getting ready to leave, Cathy came racing up on her bicycle. We all stood there for a bit talking. If you’ve ever seen American Graffiti, it was a little like the final scene at the airport with Richard Dreyfus saying goodbye to family and friends, before he departs on the plane for college.

The Last Few Minutes of my Departure Weren’t Unlike Richard Dreyfus’s Departure at the End of American Graffiti

I hugged my sisters goodbye and shook Howard’s hand. Cathy and I had a final kiss, and as we were hugging, she pressed a letter into my hand. She whispered “Don’t open this ‘til later…” With that, mom, dad and I climbed in the car and with honks and waves, were on our way.

I looked at that envelope for a long time. I believe we were in either Indiana or, maybe, Ohio before I opened it. I probably read the letter about 50 times on the drive east, and another 500 times during my time at West Point. I won’t share the contents here, but know the letter still sits in a drawer on my side of the bed, and I occasionally pull it out and read it.

I Still Occasionally Read that First Letter from Cathy

I think about that dinner, and the letter. We were just kids in so many ways, but we were also adults, or thought we were. The world turned out to not be quite as black and white as we imagined it in those last 24 hours in Ottawa, but here we are, decades later, reminiscing about our past, and still thinking about the future and what it holds for the two of us.

Addendum:

It’s worth noting a couple of things from that pre-Internet era:

  • There are no pictures of that last dinner or the farewell the next day. Why? With no cell phones or iPhones to document the events, we simply lived them. Who’s to say which is better?
  • People actually did write letters to each other back in the day. Particularly that first summer at West Point, the letters that came from Cathy, Howard, mom and dad and others helped sustain me.

Young Love

Young Love

Next week on the 16th of June, Cath and I will celebrate our 43d wedding anniversary. In an interesting twist, the 15th of June is the 49th anniversary of our first date in 1972. Cathy was all of 16 years old, and I was the older man at 17. To tell the whole story though, you need to go a couple months before then, when I turned her down for a Sadie Hawkins dance at our high school.

Every year in the spring, Ottawa Township High School (OTHS) held a Spring Formal which was also a Sadie Hawkins Dance. That is, the girl asks the boy to the event. (Do they still have those? Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. For that matter, does anyone remember Li’l Abner or Dogpatch, where Sadie Hawkins Day* originated? ). In 1972, I was a junior and Cathy Snow was a sophomore. We knew each other a bit from Student Council. Well, one evening in March, I received a call at home. The young Miss Snow was on the line, and after a bit of small talk, asked me if I would go to the Spring Formal with her. Alas, I had to turn her down, as two days before, I’d been asked by a girl in my class named Gail. The call ended pretty quickly after that.

Cathy Snow at 16…

Fast forward two months. My friend Howard and I were at Pitsticks, a local swimming place with a beach, and ran into Cathy and our mutual friend, Lori Lyle. We made small talk back and forth and at some point Cathy asked if I wanted to swim out to the diving platform and off we went. Of course I had to exhibit my prowess as a swimmer and did a one and a half off the high dive. (I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to try and impress a prospective date.) Cathy played her part and said to me “Great Dive! You looked like a knife going through soft butter when you entered the water!” My strategy appeared to be working… ;-). In later conversations, she mentioned she and Lori might be out and about riding their bikes that night. I answered back that I’d thought about going for a bike ride that night as well, and maybe I’d run into them. With that, we said our goodbyes and went back to our respective spots on the beach.

That evening after dinner, I grabbed my bike and started riding around the south side of town looking for Cathy and Lori, but didn’t see them anywhere. Eventually I stopped at a store and went inside to buy a pop. While inside, Cathy and Lori rode by, saw my bike outside the store, stopped and came inside.

Everyone seemed pretty happy to connect. We talked a bit and then went back outside and the three of us rode around town together. Eventually, we ended up back at Cathy’s house at 305 Houston Street and had some ice tea on the back porch.

305 Houston Street. The back porch is on the left side of the house.

Unbeknownst to me, Cath and Lori weren’t sure which of the two of them I might be interested in. Cath had asked me to the dance, however, Lori and I had known each other from church for quite a while. They had a plan. After a bit of time, Lori would say she had to head home. They figured if I said I had to leave as well and rode off with Lori, I was interested in her. If I stayed there when she left, I was interested in Cathy.

Dusk arrived and Lori said she was going to ride home. I wished her a good night and stayed at Cathy’s… 😉

As it grew dark, we talked, and then talked some more. Finally, around 1030PM or so, I said I ought to go home. We walked to the steps leading off the porch, and while I was trying to work up the courage to kiss her goodnight, proceeded to talk another half hour or so. Suddenly, about 11PM, her mom, Faye, appeared at the inside door to the porch in a black nightgown and said “Ina Catherine, I think it’s time to come to bed.” Family history reports I was on my bike and riding away before she finished the sentence (in retrospect, we should have found a more private place to say our goodbyes. Her parent’s bedroom was directly above the porch.)

Two nights later, on June 15th, we had our first official date. I picked Cath up with my folk’s car and we went to the Perky Putt golf course (miniature golf) on the north side of town. While I have no clear recollection of the results, Cathy remembers soundly beating me. Afterwards, we went to a small drive-in restaurant on the Illinois River called the Sanicula Marina. We both ordered Black Cows and proceeded to walk along the river. I did kiss her goodnight that evening, but it was on the front porch, not the side porch under her parent’s windows…

Miniature Golf at Perky Putt and Black Cows at Sanicula Marina – it doesn’t get much more romantic… 😉

As they say, the rest is history. We dated all summer, and then into the school year. And the next spring when she asked me to the Sadie Hawkins dance again? I quickly said yes that time around.

Spring Formal (The Sadie Hawkins Dance) in 1973 – I said yes, the second time around.

We have almost five decades together as a couple now, and it’s definitely true – Time flies when you’re having fun.

Addendum:

  • * From Wikipedia – “Sadie Hawkins Day is an American folk event and pseudo-holiday originated by Al Capp’s classic hillbilly comic strip Li’l Abner (1934–1978). This inspired real-world Sadie Hawkins events, the premise of which is that women ask men for a date or dancing. “Sadie Hawkins Day” was introduced in the comic strip on November 15, 1937.”
  • Thanks to my lovely wife, Cathy for her contributions to this blog. In particular, her memories of the day at Pitsticks are more specific than mine, including the comment that my dive “looked like a knife cutting through soft butter”.
  • Thanks to Debi Hillyer for the photo of Sanicula and Curtis Wasilewski for the picture of the Perky Putt score card. A special thanks to Mike Peabody for the photo of Cathy’s old home at 305 Houston Street. In a strange twist of fate, Cathy babysat Mike and his sister Michelle when they were young children living across the street. Mike moved out of Illinois for years and only recently returned to Ottawa. When the home became available, he and his wife bought it.