25th Anniversary Week - Lee, this is how I met your mother

Here is my second journal entry in honor of Karen and my 25th Wedding Anniversary.Lee, this is how it met your mother. Let’s go back in time to July 1980. In one of my earlier journal entries I talked about how I was active in Queens B’nai Brith Singles and how the members were using the group as a substitute for dating. Back then I was working for Schering Corporation in Bloomfield, NJ. Even, back then it was a long commute from Queens to NJ, but I told everyone that living in NYC was a better option for a single person than living in the suburbs. Personal ads were becoming an acceptable way of finding dates. I never placed an ad, but answered a few from a newspaper called the New York Almanac. One night I received a phoned called from Lynn who said she lived in Bloomfield. Obviously that was a conversation piece. We agreed to meet for a date after work one day.

Most of my co-workers at Schering were a bunch of middle aged women who had to gossip about everybody and anybody. I always told them that there were more dating prospects in New York than New Jersey. When I told them that I had a date with a girl in Bloomfield within walking distance I heard a very loud laugh. I enjoyed the date with her; it certainly takes more than one meeting to get to know someone. Anyway, when I came back to work the next Monday, they ambushed me asking how it went.

I asked Lynn out for a second date. We agreed to meet on a Friday night just after work. I said I would phone her when I left work to set the exact time. I phoned her home and got no answer. I tried 15 minutes later and still no answer. I then decided to go over to her apartment. I rang the bell and she answered. She said I just don’t feel like going out. I was stood up. How rude can one be? She could have declined my invitation for a second date, but don’t stand anyone up. That was the first and only time that happened in all of my years of dating. Monday morning, the busy bodies ambushed me again as I told them I was stood up.

Arlene Shapiro was another co-worker who was married Jewish woman a few years younger than I. About a month later, she asked me if I’d like to meet her sister-in-law who lived in Queens near me. I figured that after being stood up the last time I had nothing to lose. I met Karen on August 30, 1980. Our first date was at an ice dancing show at the Nassau Coliseum. I remember that as she locked the door to her apartment, I thought, I am ahead of the last time. When we talked, we both found out we both liked the Beatles. So, it is safe to say that the Beatles brought us together. I didn’t introduce her to Bob Dylan until later, but I did notice she had the album Blood on the Tracks in her collection. I also remember that when we got back to her apartment that Saturday night she turned on the radio to 99-X. Later on we turned on WCBS-FM and listened to the Sock Hop with Jack Spector. After the second date, she invited me to her apartment on a week night to listen to the Beatles. The rest is history.

Postscript – Paul (Karen’s brother) and Arlene Shapiro were divorced about 5 years ago. They have both remarried.