It was a hot summer in 1976. Three bedrooms, living room and kitchen were far too much an area for two window air conditioner units to cool. Why didn’t we just buy more window units, you ask? Well, we were college students. College students in 1976 were generally broke. Any extra money in our pockets or found in the crevices of the sofa and chairs went to buy beer, then food.

If you’re paying attention, I wrote “we” and “our” in the preceding paragraph. Why? Because there were four of us sharing this second floor apartment. 

Rich, Tony, Bill and myself graduated from a community college in Scotch Plains the year before. Over this two year program, we became good friends. We cut the same classes to go play basketball and drink beer, we hung out together after school, at bars and discos. We also decided to attend Montclair State and live off campus, together. We were like the four horsemen, except headless!

A year after graduating community college, we finished our first year at Montclair State. Notice I did not squeeze the word “successful” in between the words first, and year. Well, at least for me. Since my grades were mediocre at best, I decided to take two classes over that summer, Speech 101 and the second I don’t remember because I dropped it.

The course was six weeks long, twice weekly, I’d have plenty of time to work and enjoy the summer, even in a hot apartment. 

Speech class was interesting. Or, better said, speech class contained an individual I was interested in, Jane. Average height, kinky blonde hair, green eyes and a pair of perky … yeppers I’d better stop at that. You get my point (pun intended). 

I gathered up the nerve to ask her out, she said yes, and we ended up playing tennis. That did not go over very well. Neither of us ever played tennis before. Honestly, if she would’ve suggested downhill skiing in the Sahara desert, I would’ve said yes, and I didn’t ski. 

After the debacle on the tennis court she began to give me the cold shoulder in class. Why? Typical girl? I don’t know. I didn’t really care because this petite brunette began sitting next to me, always smiling. We’d engage in small talk and even got coffee once after class in a campus cafeteria. Besides being cute, she was funny and would laugh at my dopey remarks.

Then the final day of class rolled around in which we had a casual day outside. This petite, quiet type I’d been talking to shows up to class. Already tanned from the summers sun, she wore skimpy white denim shorts and a dark blue soft shirt, with the words, Lil’ Fox embroidered on the shirt. Mission accomplished, Debbie.

We exchanged phone numbers and I told her I’d call. Little did she know (or maybe she did) that I’d call that same night and ask her out. 

Our first date was a few days later, Wednesday, August 11, 1976, forty-seven years ago today. We went to the movies and saw Logan’s Run, with Farrah Fawcett. After that we went to Tierneys Pub for a drink. 

The rest is history…