January 6: My AOPi sister Sheila Spruill Barrick and I had a pact: we would not fall in love and marry until we had lived together in a big city for one year. She graduated and taught school in Elizabeth City, NC for a year waiting for me to finish at ECU. I had changed majors every other quarter trying to find myself, and ended up needing to take Japanese History winter quarter - on my lunch hour while working at Penneys - to graduate. By the time I left Greenville, eight-track blaring Carpenters and show tunes in the early morning hours of February 1974, Sheila was already teaching in Albany (It was big to us.), living in a garage apartment I could share, and friends with Jack and Freida Powell through Bob Baker and his wife. I arrived before 3pm, pulled my Hulla Blue Ford Maverick into the alley off Society Avenue, parked behind the little house, and waited for her to come home. That night, she and I celebrated with her treating me to dinner and a visit to the Jolly Fox on Slappey Blvd. She pointed to this guy with curly hair who was dancing every dance with different women. I went out with him for a while, she said, but it just didnt click for us. He was a crazy dancer, so naturally drew the eye. I soon noticed the women were asking him to dance instead of vice versa. He didnt look dignified enough for Sheila. I started job hunting. I had only $100 to my name and what I had crammed into my car for the long drive south. I did a little temporary work at F & W Forestry, then interviewed for a Field Directors job at Flint River Girl Scouts. Gail Kiracofe was the director, then, and an AOPi from Indiana. We hit it off, and I had my first real job. Later in March, Sheila and friends arranged a blind date with the guy from the Jolly Fox. Hes fun, but not the type youd ever get serious about, Sheila said. Everyone at the party was married except Sheila and me and our dates. The guys hung in the kitchen, and the women gathered like hens in the den. It was a grown-up party and not a lot of fun when you didnt really know most of the people there. My date knew everyone, though; in fact, Jack was his roommate at Georgia. Those friends kept handing him drinks. After a while, the group sat in a circle on the floor and sang along to some of those hippie folk songs while I strummed my guitar, and he sang off-key in my ear. For what was supposed to be just a fun date, I was not having much fun at all. When I returned from the bathroom to find no one in the house, I investigated the cheering outside only to see everyone circling my date who was throwing up under a tree. I insisted Sheilas date take me home. I never wanted to see that other guy again. His friends begged, however, because they had sabotaged that first attempt to get us together; they had mixed all kinds of liquor in his drinks that night, and he wasnt much of a tippler to begin with. It turned out the boy could not only dance but had the smoothest telephone voice I had ever heard. We went to see Clint Eastwoods Magnum Force (romantic, right?), he didnt even hold my hand, and he ended with a handshake when he said goodnight at my door. I married him exactly twelve months after that first blind date. Sheila was a bridesmaid, Jack was an usher, and Freida played the organ that day at Porterfield Methodist. Thatll be forty years ago this March, and most days I remain thankful I said yes to that second date.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 14:29:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015