Cupid's Corner

I think Herb and I were destined to meet. We both lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., but about as far away as two people could live from each other and still be in the same borough (about a forty-five minute car ride). One day, I applied for a job at a company located in the center of Brooklyn, and I was told I could have so the job. But when I left the building, I noticed a sign for an opening in another company nearby, and decided to apply for that job, too, just in case it paid more the first. I ended up taking the second job.  A few weeks after I started to work there, a new employee was hired as an electronic technician. All the girls in the office were taking turns peeking at him. He was a tall, well built, blue-eyed blond, with a shy look about him. The general Consensus was that he was “so cute" and had the most Wonderful blue eyes. I thought he was cute, too, but I didn't want to look too interested because Anne, the girl who had trained me, let it be known that she "saw him first.” Anne was gorgeous, and I figured I didn't have a chance of getting his attention if she went after him. One day, I needed a pencil sharpener fastened to my desk and wondered who I could get to do it for me. As luck would have it, the man who was in charge of the electronics department also took care of little maintenance jobs and sent the new employee (Herb) to screw the sharpener to my desk. We started talking and felt very comfortable with each other. After that each time we saw each other we stopped to chat for a few minutes. After all, we were both the low men on the totem pole, being the most recent hirees, and it sort of gave us a bond. Before long, I was being teased about Herb finding so many excuses to come and talk to me. Anne got involved with someone else who worked in the company and Herb and I drifted together for lunch and coffee breaks. When I realized how much I liked him, I thought, Wow. If I'd taken that first job I was offered, I would never have met this terrific guy! We tried to keep our relationship platonic so it wouldn't affect our jobs, but after a few months, Herb got up the nerve to ask me for a date. He suggested we go ice-skating at a nearby skating rink. Little did he know that I had never ice skated before. But I wasn't about to tell him. So I bought myself a pair of ice skates and off we went. He had to hold me up a lot (which he didn't seem to mind), and proved himself to be a sincere and thoughtful person. After that, we were seeing each other almost every night after work, and ten months later, we were married. (My mother's advice to us was, "Be kind to each other.") A year and a half later, we had our first child, then four more over the next thirteen years. Herb's blue eyes were still turning me on, I guess. Actually, it was a lot more than that. Herb is a gentle soul and eager to please. He worked two jobs to support our growing family and always found time to take the kids on outings on weekends or holidays. It wasn't until our twenty-fifth anniversary that Herb and I got to take a vacation by ourselves, and it was surprising how romantic we could still be together. On an island in the Bahamas, we shared a double hammock. This is a picture someone took of us, giggling and almost falling out of the hammock. Herb is great at puns, which most people groan at, but which I still find humorous. He loves to tell people, "Would you believe she still laughs at my jokes?" And Herb always encouraged me to pursue whatever dreams I had. When I became interested in writing, he watched the kids while I took some evening courses. Eventually, my articles were published in the local newspaper, and Herb clipped them out and showed them to everyone at work. I guess what's made our love last through the years is that we respect and support one another. Sure, we've had our bad days, even days when the thought of calling it quits entered our minds. But we always managed to turn them around by trying to see each other's viewpoint, and then getting things back on track with a dose of forgiveness and a dose of laughter. I think taking my mother's advice about being kind to each other helped a lot, too. I see so many couples who put their partners down instead of building them up. It makes me want to tell them that how you make people feel about themselves has a strong effect on how they will feel about you. Last week, we celebrated our forty-third anniversary!
Terri Andersen
 New Milford, CT
True Romance Sept. 1998