How Diane Met Michael:
August 4, 1977, on the heels of a broken heart, I forced myself to get out of the house and went with some friends to a place completely out of my comfort zone, Captain Cook's. Captain Cook's was one of your typical “lounge lizard singles bar” in San Jose California complete with waitresses dressed in "serving wench" costumes. Never would I have dreamed that I would meet the man I would spend my life with at a place like this.
We danced, and before the night came to a close, he asked for my phone number (yes, people actually called on the phone back then, no texting); I gave him my number though I doubted he would call. I was wrong. He called the next day and asked me out. We saw a terrible movie, “New York, New York” with Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro, a movie that we joked about for years afterwards. Our first date led to the second and we were off to San Francisco. We took my car, a Plymouth Fury III, aka “the Queen Mary”; we spent a fun evening walking all over San Francisco with dinner in Chinatown, the first and last time I ever ate duck.
Walking along Fisherman’s Wharf, we popped into a store selling sea shells, I still have the conch shell he bought me. Makes me smile every time.
They say opposites attract, and we could not have been more opposite. I was that nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn, NY, and he was a lapsed Mormon from Idaho Falls, ID. We shared many things in common, but what most impressed me was our love of the same music. From Motown to Van Morrison to the Beetles and the Allman Brothers, we were quite the match. Michael introduced me to blues, Jackson Brown and so much more.
Michael took me
on adventures I never would have experienced had I stayed in Brooklyn. We went camping, and by camping, I mean we would drive to a deserted spot in the woods and set up camp; he always chose the road less traveled bringing meaning to the old adage that 'the longest way home is the sweetest'. ] We traveled from Stanley and Redfish lakes, two of my favorite places on the planet, to Hawaii, Italy, and Australia, where we snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef.
Who knew that a night at Captain Cook's would begin a 28 year chapter of my life, a chapter that would bring the trials of cancer, yet the rapture of a great love.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Diane
