A Love Story

I was living in Syracuse, New York. Rob was living in Pennsylvania. We had never met or even heard of each other. The company Rob worked for offered a yearly promotional trip to it's best customers. That year my boss had earned the trip, but he didn't like to travel, so he offered it to me. Imagine a trip to Acapulco, Mexico in January when Syracuse is covered in snow. I accepted.

It was in the twenties in Syracuse and there was snow on the ground. When I arrived in Mexico around 8PM the temperature was still in the high eighties. I have always liked winter vacations. I was happy to stay in the air conditioned office all summer, but in winter, it was truly a treat to go someplace tropical.


Acapulco was beautiful. I spent the mornings on the beach. Afternoons were for shopping or exploring. The company usually had something going on in the evening, a dinner, a show or a shopping night. Then there were late nights drinking pina coladas at poolside. What a treat.


I took a bus tour of the city and , of course, had to see the famous cliff divers.



What a way to earn a living!


On the last evening of the trip the company threw a cocktail party followed by a dinner and dance. At the cocktail party, a mutual friend introduced me to a man named Robert, who was one of the people running the trip. He invited me to dine with him. I remember we were served broiled snapper, asparagus and baked Alaska. I think I ate a couple spears of asparagus and a bite of baked Alaska, my favorite dessert. Rob and I were too busy talking to eat.

We spent hours talking and when we flew home the next day, I knew I had met the man I would marry. My phone rang at 8AM the next day. It was Rob calling and we arranged to meet for our first official date the following weekend.

On Valentine's Day I received a wonderful love letter from him. I was a little disturbed that it was typed, but after trying to read his handwriting, I was glad it was. On March 3rd he asked me to marry him and I accepted.


Our Best Man, who was a woman, threw an engagement party for us and this is a picture of the official proposal on one knee.


Here is Pylon, our wedding dog. We found her the day before we drove to New York to get our license.

We were married on November 1st in the farmhouse where I had grown up. My Aunt and Uncle live there now. It was a cool, crisp, sunny day, perfect for a wedding. My Cousin was my Bridesmaid. Our Friend, a woman, was Best Man. My Brother was Usher and the woman who performed the ceremony was one of the first women ordained by the Episcopal Church. Rob was really outnumbered by women.


We had about sixty family and friends attend.


Rob designed the cake. It was chocolate, of course, with raspberry filling, and trimmed with red roses. We had a music box on the top.





We did the bouquet thing and the garter thing. My Cousin caught the bouquet, she got married six weeks later. My Brother caught the garter and soon met the girl he would marry. Maybe there's something to those old traditions.



We spent our honeymoon in Hawaii. Here is the view from our balcony.



The hotel had an open air lobby with these wonderful Foo Dogs on display.



We drove around the island and found some surfing waves. We are not surfers, but we did enjoy the scenery.



After a week of sun , sand and Mai Tais at poolside, we returned to Pennsylvania to start our life together. Today is our 22nd wedding anniversary. We've done the better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health and we're still together..