Anonymous: Romance in the Fifties

dating circuit. His gravelly-voiced friend suggests the girl from camp with the good lookin’ legs.

He says, more or less, when she answers his phone call, “Hey, I knew you at camp. I was a sailing instructor. Now I am a senior in Law School and a ‘Big Man on Campus.’ Would you go to a Law School party with me?”

She says, “Yes,” not having a clue as to who he is, but she is new on campus and glad to meet more people. She does keep in mind the admonition about “New Orleans boys.”

After the party he pulls up at the dorm, fairly early actually, in his father’s big white Cadillac. As he slides towards her on the red leather seat, she presses towards her door and assumes her defensive position. He puts his right arm around the back of her seat and leans forward. Her hands make knuckle fists. His left hand reaches towards her and at the last minute presses open the glove compartment. His hand disappears inside and then pulls out a handful of Hershey’s candy kisses, offering them to her.

He says, “This is the best I can do for now, Baby.”

She is speechless, thinks it is hilarious, and is impressed by his originality. Maybe New Orleans boys are not so bad after all.

Time passes. The Old European Coffee Shop has just opened on Royal St., a perfect place for someone who still cannot drink and does not have enough money for a dinner date. They get to know each other over coffee and European pastries and long conversations. They date off and on. He takes her to her first Opera, her first Symphony, teaches her to eat boiled crabs and shrimp, then crawfish. He introduces her to Nick Castrogiovani’s Bar and the “Pousse Café.”

May. 1958. He graduates from Law School and begins the practice of Law. She goes to Europe for the summer. He goes to Boot Camp. She returns for fall semester. They date more on than off. They wander endlessly in the French Quarter and break up, then make up, several times at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. He appears one Saturday morning outside the dorm standing atop a pile of dirt from road construction. He has his beagle hound, Poopy Joe, and an armful of black-eyed susans picked in a nearby field, offering an apology for…whatever.

May.1959. She graduates from Newcomb. He attends her graduation and brings a present, a small silver cocktail shaker engraved with her first name. Her mother does not know what to make of this present. She stays in New Orleans and begins the job search.

It is mid-summer. She lives in a third-floor apartment on St. Charles Avenue with a sorority sister. No job yet. One night she is babysitting for her brother and sister-in-law. Her brother is in med school and they live in the small upper apartment of a duplex. He joins her there and after the two children are asleep they watch TV. The tiny, worn linoleum-floored kitchen is adjacent to the living room and she goes to get him a beer out the 1948, freezer-at-the-top, refrigerator. As she is bent over double reaching into the back of the bottom shelf for a beer, she hears a voice behind her.

He says, “Will you marry me?”

She stops reaching for the beer, uncurls herself and stands, turns around, and just looks at him, totally confounded and speechless. This is a marriage proposal?? A few moments pass in silence. He is impatient. He wants an answer!

He says, “Well?” There is another long silence.

Then, finally, smiling, she says, “Yes!”

In October, 2022, they celebrate their 63rd Wedding Anniversary.

(We think this is better leaving the authors unknown – it adds a little mystery.)