Preface This is the first installment of 30 stories, vignettes, tales or just something fun I wanted to share with family and friends as one of my 30th anniversary gifts to Dorothy. They will appear in no particular order but once written, much like the George Lucas Star Wars approach, will be numbered for timeline purposes and ease of plot explanations. Future installments will not be for specific times or years but more associated with memorable events or periods of time during our first 30 years of marriage. Dorothy has no editorial privileges or veto rights with regard to what I will write about. Photographs will be added as I see fit and if you don’t quite know the current episode’s preliminaries or epilogue, be patient as there will be a beginning and something close to an organized form of chaos for my project, at least through year 30. Episode #5 – “April in Paris” 1983 Once Dorothy had accepted my marriage proposal via an overseas telephone call, I went into overdrive trying to figure out a few logistics and responsibilities that were squarely mine to handle. We had decided to get married in Reno, not Paris or Washington D.C. during the summer when Vicki was out of school and I could travel back to the U.S. for an extended period of time. Dorothy would wait until June to resign from the State Department and just continue her consular officer and language training until pulling the plug. Vicki would finish the 6th grade and we would have a little extra time to visit family and friends while stateside during the summer as we made our way to Paris after the wedding. My major priorities had quickly become finding housing and a school for Vicki. I was really fortunate to find a cute, modern 2 bedroom apartment west of Paris in the suburb of Rueil-Malmaison, within the Hauts-de-Seine department of France. The apartment was walking distance to my office, convenient to the RER station and about a ½ mile to the River Seine as it made its last loop before heading northwest of the Paris area for the sea. Rent was well below budget since it was in the suburbs and it would keep getting cheaper monthly with the exchange rates as it turned out. It was also large enough to handle our constant stream of visitors over the next year and half as well. My next task was to find a school for Vicki who would be turning into a teenager within a month. I exhausted all the possibilities and reviewed the options with Dorothy. We decided to enroll Vicki in a French lycée and not a private school. The Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye was a top ranked French school with 13 different international sections. Vicki would have some American kids as classmates and also get exposed to a lot of other cultures with students from other countries, in addition to French kids. She would be taught in French from her first day and would even take a second language while being taught that in French as well. She would still get a little native tongue native grammar and literature just like all international students received too. Meanwhile, Dorothy was planning most of the wedding long distance from D.C. through her Mother and sister. She would update me on the progress while providing information for choices and decisions she needed my input to resolve. It was all going pretty smoothly and we were planning to get to Reno before the July wedding to make final corrections and adjustments if needed. So with housing, school and wedding plans well in hand, I now had time to focus on how to go about not only finding Dorothy a ring, but giving it to her in a special way. The telephone proposal was expected given my quick assignment to Paris, but our engagement needed a ring and certainly a more traditional, special emphasis. In early February, I had been reading articles and classified ads in the International Herald Tribune newspaper. The IHT was the Europe’s English newspaper with American and European news that most of the expatriates like me read daily for a “fix”. Anyway, one of the advertisements was from Joachim Goldenstein, a wholesale diamond merchant in the world famous Diamond Mart in Antwerp, Belgium that sold diamonds to the public. The Diamond Mart was a five or six story central atrium style building with nothing but diamond brokers in small offices. Tight security for obvious reasons for the 100 or so brokers and untold riches kept in their offices. I had been strictly window shopping for a ring going on a few weeks, trying to figure out where to buy one, decide how and when to present it and a few other details. I decided to go ahead call Joachim and spoke to him directly about how the process worked for selecting a diamond, setting and payment arrangements. Joachim explained things quite well and sounded like a wonderful man that I connected with instantly. I explained to him that I had been talking to Dorothy about flying her to Paris in the next month or so to get a preview of her coming attractions, get some things decided about the wedding and provide a little romantic celebration for our engagement. I was getting excited about how my idea to surprise her with an engagement ring was taking shape and Joachim told me to just let him know when and he would be available. When I spoke to Dorothy about a recon trip to Paris, she naturally got excited and explained that over Easter would be the best time since she could combine the holiday with whatever time she could take off from the State Department. It worked with my schedule as well since I would back from my monthly progress meeting trip in Kuwait the week before Easter. I made her a reservation to arrive in Paris for the Wednesday before Easter and return back to D.C. the following Wednesday. I then called Joachim about scheduling an appointment with him for Friday morning of that week, which was Good Friday. He would be open and looked forward to our visit. The remaining few weeks crept by ever so slowly until she arrived and then we had a grand reunion together. By now I knew my way around Paris quite well but was still struggling with French as I would until, well, even today. After a day, I planted the seed about taking the train the hour or so up to Antwerp as a side trip to a festival or something. I explained that on Good Friday everything would be closed in Paris so we might as well. She agreed and we were on our way to Antwerp early that Friday morning as planned. When we arrived in Antwerp, the train station platforms were something right out of a 1940’s World War II scene – decorative wrought iron columns with glass roofs, old with years of character. Once we left the station, the Diamond Mart was just down the street. When I saw the building and sign, I told Dorothy that I had read about the tours and we should take advantage of going while so close. She agreed and once inside, we presented our passports and I suggested that we try Joachim Goldenstein since I had read about the Diamond Mart and his business in the newspaper. So far, so very good… When we entered his small, quaint two room office, he greeted us like old friends that just wanted to learn about the worldwide diamond business. He guided us to the second office with the largest safe I have ever seen and where his two female assistants were working. Joachim kept explaining things as he pulled one of the heavy safe doors open and extracted a large but shallow wooden tray from one of the safe’s many shelves. He placed the tray on the desktop and then pulled the velvet flap off the top and exposed the contents of the like I have never seen. Thousands, literally thousands of diamonds in compartments, all sorted by shape, size, quality and color. Once we pushed our eyes back into their sockets, we listened intently as he explained the differences among the stones. It was like something out of a James Bond movie, quite surreal to say the least. I had previously discussed with him my thoughts for the size of a diamond and the cut, so he purposely continued to pull about a dozen diamonds from the tray that met my criteria as part of the morning’s Diamonds 101 class. About 20 minutes into our “tour” he asked if we had any further questions and about our impressions. It was then that I asked Dorothy to “pick one”… Time absolutely stopped while she tried to process what she had just heard. She looked at me confused and like “What did you just say?” knowing that I wasn’t going to repeat myself. Her look was priceless as she realized my smile gave away why we were really in Joachim’s office finally. Her confused look was quickly and literally washed away with happy tears and some of the biggest smiles I have ever witnessed from her, even after all these years. Hugs, kisses and a lot of happy dancing then ensued. Dorothy and the two women dried their tears while regaining a sense of composure and Joachim took over once again. He patiently helped her select a diamond and setting for her stone type. Once he sized her finger, he told us to go have a long, leisurely and romantic lunch at one of his favorite restaurants across the street, then come back in 2 hours to pick up her ring once he had mounted the diamond. We enjoyed our lunch immensely while I shared with Dorothy all the details of my plan leading up to her complete surprise. When we returned to Joachim’s office, the ring was ready as promised and after another round of hugs and kisses, we thanked Joachim, collected our passports and left the Diamond Mart building engaged finally for real. Good Friday, April 1, 1983 and without a doubt, the best April Fools’ Day ever.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 14:47:43 +0000
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