We were both going out with other people at the time, not very happily. We'd meet from time to time walking across campus, and we'd go out for a beer and cry on each other's shoulders about how miserable we both were. In the fall we met again and had that same chemistry. When I went home for Christmas break, I invited Bruce to visit New Jersey for New Year's and also invited my boyfriend, whom I didn't want to come.
Well, the boyfriend ended up canceling, and Bruce ended up coming. He drove all night in a snowstorm to the airport, then fell asleep, missed his flight and ended up on a turbulent ride with the stewardesses pouring drinks down his throat. He could barely walk off the plane, he was so tired and sloshed. And that's how he met the parents.
A girlfriend and I had rented the second floor of an old farmhouse out in Albany, and Bruce lived with a bunch of guys out in Milford, the other direction outside of Athens. So he moved in with us "for convenience." My roommate ended up quitting school and going home to Cleveland, leaving me and Bruce rather blissfully together until one night, as we were getting ready for a Fifth Dimension concert, there was a knock on the door.
It was our 85-year-old landlady, Goldie, and her 60-year-old daughter saying, "We'd like to see your marriage license, and if you can't show it to us, we're gonna stay right here until you pack up all your things and leave!" And wouldn't you know it, they did just that, as we called all our friends with cars and wrapped up all our stuff in sheets and blankets and moved out. We slept on a friend's floor for a few days and then moved to the trailer court outside town for the last few months of school. We never did get to that concert.
Being the starving, broke students that we were, we decided to get married that summer, partly so we couldn't get evicted again anywhere in Southeast Ohio, but mostly because I got Bruce's in-state residency for my senior year, which cut my tuition by one-fourth. Not to mention the little fact that we LOVED each other.
In spite of my mother's hysterical sobbing at the news over the phone ("Why can't you live together longer to make sure? Why can't you graduate first?"), we had a nice ceremony in the summer of 1970 in my parent's backyard in New Jersey -- barefoot with wildflowers in my hair and our closest friends and family. We spent our wedding night on their living room floor with the wedding party, and we spent our honeymoon camping through the Smoky Mountains with the best man and two of Bruce's best friends!
And in spite of everything and everyone -- 36 years and three children later -- I can say, "We told you we knew what we were doing!"
Read the contest's two finalists:
The Jefferson Hall milkman
Calling for love
From Bird Arena to Tinker Toys, more stories of how Ohio University alumni met:
Couples Contest entries
Posted 11-02-07
