Alarm on Love

Must've been something in the air that got the Lanes from Boston to Camden.

We figure that's what it was when Dad met Mom.  We got that story from Mom.


PT. 2--

L:  How about if you tell me about when you met Dad…
(laughing)
L:  No comment?
S:  That’s on?
L:  Yeah.
S:  Alright, when I met Daddy…
L:  Where’d you go to high school?
S:  West Branch Michigan.  Graduated fourth in my class of eighty.
L:  You did?
S:  Yes.  And went to Northwood Institute, it was called back then which is a funny name, now it’s Northwood University.  Went there on a scholarship…planning to take, you know, go to college and then work at Dow Chemical because that’s what a lot of people did in Michigan.  But definitely went to school for business secretarial.  And then I met Daddy….my first year there, toward the end of the first year and he was going for business.  And when I first met him I didn’t like him, that’s always part of my story about meeting Daddy.  I thought he looked like a sleepy head because he always came to class like he just got out of bed which he probably did!  Came straight to class…but to me, now I realize, of course, that was normal, but, for me I had to be up at, in the cafeteria, I had to be up at five o’clock and in the cafeteria for anybody who was going through the cafeteria to have lunch because that was my job so I could pay for my school. So…that was part of going to Northwood.  So everybody had these numbers to use on their tickets, so I would memorize people by their numbers…
(laughing)
S:  But, Daddy’s I could never remember.
L:  Really?
S:  Yeah…So the first impact Daddy made on me was when I was with my friends in the Dow Commons, that’s the name of the lounge area for the students…
L: aha
S:  Um, I was sitting with my friends and of course, checking out all the guys and we happened to be talking to Daddy and a couple of his friends who were sitting near us, and I said something about, I didn’t have an alarm clock I hope I could get up in time to get to, you know, the cafeteria job that I had…because it was kind of, you know…So the next thing I know I saw him getting up to leave so I figured he was just going to his room or whatever.  A few minutes later he came back with an alarm clock and he gave me the alarm clock and he said, “Here…maybe this will help you get up in the morning…”
(L. laughing)
S:  So…and it was one of those, you know really cool alarm clocks that you wind up and so when I put it on the metal chair when the alarm went off it was still dark out…I put it on the metal chair and of course everybody in the dorm was like, Oh my God…my roommate was like I’m changing rooms…
(laughing)
S:  You better not do that again.  But I used it every morning to get up because I loved the way he gave me that clock.  So that was my first impression of meeting Daddy.  And then on weekends I would go home to visit Grandma and Chud, most weekends, and one weekend, it was probably a Friday afternoon, my phone rang in my room and it was Daddy, it was Ed, and he said, “Would you like to, you know, go out for dinner or something tonight?”  And I said, “Well, I really can’t because I’m on…I’m packed up now and I’m on my way to go home.  So I do remember that when I went home that weekend and when I came back on the Sunday, he happened to be coincidentally leaving the campus and it was around five o’clock and I saw him and I waved so he stopped in his little car, actually he was driving a big Rio, a red Buick and he stopped the car and we said hello and, he said to me… “Do you want to go to church with me?”  And I said, “Oh, yeah sure,” of course, because I thought he was really cute.  So that was my first date with Daddy was going to mass.
(L. laughs)
S:  Which I hadn’t gone to for…I only went to mass one time with Chud in West Branch, we went to a Christmas mass and I loved it.  It was little church in West Branch and they had real candles, the altar boys were all dressed up, it was like really festive…And so I knew that I really did like the Catholic Church but Grandma Pearl never wanted us to go to church…so…
L:  Why?
S:  She called it “mask.”  And she didn’t let Chud go to church.
L:  Why?
S:  But he would go sometimes even if she didn’t like it.  Why?  That’s a whole other chapter.  Um, so I went to church with Daddy, that was our first date…
L:  You went to mask?
S:  I went to mask and, um, then our second date was bowling.  We went bowling together and back in those days I was really excited and really nervous about going bowling and having a date with Daddy, so I was a little worried about perspiration, so while we were in the middle of our bowling game, I looked around and I saw some guy bowling next to us and he had a coat.  And I asked him if I could borrow it, because I didn’t want daddy to notice that I had a little perspiration there…So…the guy had a rain coat and he let me wear it.  And I was bowling in my raincoat.
(laughing)
L:  So Dad wouldn’t see your sweaty armpits?
S:  Yeah, shut up Lara…So he wouldn’t notice that I had some perspiration, okay?! (laughs)  But anyway, you know, we did have some dates and pretty much after we went out together we never wanted to be separated from each other.  We did everything together.  Everything.
L:  Like what?
S:  Like going to Emeral Park, like going bowling, we went to Howard Johnsons a lot, we had, we went to A&W, had our root beer and hot dogs at the drive-in, we did everything in Midland together…and he did, speaking of rain coats, we were downtown Midland and there was a yellow raincoat in the window and Daddy bought it for me, because I didn’t have my own raincoat…So that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship…(chuckles).
L:  Did you study?
S:  I studied and I helped Daddy study.  We studied each other and we studied our books and we went to Pizza Sam’s a lot, we went to the Dow Chemical Gardens and we just did everything together and it made Northwood, really, our special place.
L:  And did Daddy go right away to visit Grandma Pearl with you?
S:  No, no…no no…Grandma wasn’t allowed to know I was dating.
L:  Even though you were in college?
S:  (laughing) College.  Looking back of course I would’ve taken him up there right away for them to meet ‘em and tell ‘em this is my boyfriend, but I didn’t do that…I was afraid…so…When I went to Northwood I drove this little car, I called it the Red Goose, it was Renault and it was a Rambler, and I forgot who made it but I think it was a Plymouth Rambler, I believe, but you know, you had to put your foot all the way to the floor and you might get it up to fifty-five…and I remember bringing Daddy up to meet Grandma and Chud once I realized there was nothing taking, keeping us apart, so but I was a nervous wreck all the way home and Grandma’s impression of him…the only thing she said to me was, he’s lazy.
(laughing)
S:  And it was at that moment that I made a resolution that I was going to go to New York to see him over the summer whether Grandma liked it or not, so once I got down to Midland the following fall, after my first year of school, before school started and I was working my job…before my job started, before anything happened, I made plans to go to New York, so I left from Tri-City airport and I went out to visit daddy for a whole week and to meet his family and it was like just a wonderful trip and then when I got back, my mom was so…stressed, she flew into me and she hit me, she made my teeth bloody and Grandma brought me down so I could see her and then she could fly into me because they were very upset that I’d left the state and flew to New York without telling anyone.  I can understand it a little bit but, you know…So then I had to call Daddy and tell him to come and pick me up in Lansing because, you know, Mom, you know, my face was like really a mess because Mom was very upset with me and that’s how she expressed it, so…So Daddy rescued me and then when I got back to Midland I let them all know that no matter what Daddy was my boyfriend and I was keeping him…no matter what they did to me.  And it was at that point, I think, that Grandma Pearl kept my car because Daddy picked me up in Lansing so Grandma Pearl used my car to go home and she kept my car and sold it.  I never had a car again.
L:  They teamed up on you.
S:  Yeah, they teamed up on me and that was the end of my car, so…and you know I’d washed dishes for two summers to save five hundred dollars to use toward that car, so that traditionally was supposed to be my car…it was my car and they took it away from me and sold it.  That was pretty upsetting.
L:  And smacked you in  the face?!
S:  But I was so happy to be with Daddy, I didn’t care…it didn’t phase me…I don’t care…
L:  Is that when you saw him in his white sweater?
S:  He was worth it.  Yeah, he was really skinny.  He had a waist of about thirty inches.  And wore really tight jeans and a white, soft sweater with nice shirts under it.  And I said, that is MY man.  So at the end of the second year, we were together for, you know, the end of the first year and then the second year…and Daddy of course had to go home for the summer and I thought he was going to…you know we were both packing up, getting ready…I was going to stay in Midland, I had a job at Fairies and Maxwell, and I thought Daddy was going to send me from his room like…he sent me a note, it had a yellow envelope, so I was hoping he was going to give me his ring, his Northwood ring to wear which would prove that we were definitely together…so I got the envelope, I knew it was note from Daddy and it was a stupid Potomac pen.
(laughing)
S:  And I looked at that like, what?  I didn’t get the ring, so I made a resolution that during my summer when Daddy was back in New York, during my summer in Michigan I would write to him every day, send him cards, but I would also tell him how much I was dating and I dated…And I went out and I had a great time, I had lots of dates…
L:  You were lying.
S:  NO, I wasn’t lying.  No, I dated.  I went out a lot.  And, I told him all the details.  Oh, I’m going to be in Hemlock tonight…I’m going to a prom…one of my friends had some kind of dance or something, so when Daddy came back…I was going, that was a date I already had, I had a beautiful green gown, I have a picture of it.  And I went with this guy who was form Ohio, his last name was Sanders, Saunders, so anyway, I…it was so much fun, I went to that dance and Daddy saw my dress, he saw I was dating this guy, I was determined to make sure…
L:  He was jealous.
S:  If he wanted to date me and if he wanted me to be his girl, he’d have to give the ring or else…so I did everything I could do to get him jealous.  I told him, I was at bars and I would call him, and say, oh do you hear the music in the background, I was having a great time…hopefully I really stressed him.  So, but Daddy did tell me that when he went back for that summer he went out with Eileen who was his friend since childhood…Eileen Higby…and all they both did was talk about…she talked about Ted and he talked about me…so they really…they thought they might have an interest in each other but all they did was talk about their…
L:   Is that when…
S:  Loves.
L:  Is that when Daddy went out with Claire and she bit his lip because she was mad about you?
S:  Actually that was…when Daddy first went to Northwood his first year there he dated her and he went down to Detroit to see her on weekends… that was his first girlfriend.  I don’t know how he met her or whatever, but he met her and they were dating and…up to the point where she, what do you call it?  They sucked face and she sucked on his lip and made it all swollen and he’d had enough of her…So that’s when he called me and he said do you want to go out with me…would you like…I was a rebound request.
(laughing)
S:  So I don’t even know if he was attracted to me, or he was just upset about his fat lip…that he wanted to take me out as a revenge to her.  So…
(laughing)
L:  That’s funny.
S:  I wasn’t into sucking on lips.  So anyway, that’s how we got together.  And when he did come back to school that fall, he invited me to a dance that Northwood had and he saved me this…he took this paper rose at the dance and he gave it to me and that was like, really a special thing and um, and when we were dancing, he lined up some other date we were going to have and he said to me about this guy I was dating, he said to me, that was one of our funny lines, he said, “Is he going to be in Hemlock too?”  Because that’s where the dance was in this little town called Hemlock.  And I said, No I don’t think he’s going to be there…so I knew my whole plan was working.
(laughing)
S:  I worked at Penny’s then too.  And Daddy worked at…he got a job at Penny’s because we knew we were going to be together and then on May 16th, 1968 we got engaged….

Tape ends

Side 2

L:  You got engaged on May 16th…
S:  May 16th 1968...Daddy took me into St. Brigid’s Church, Catholic Church and he was really nervous…but…and we’d already picked out the ring, so I knew what the ring looked like and um, he asked me if I would marry him.
L:  So that was sophomore year for Daddy?
S:  That was Daddy’s junior year I think and we’d been going out for two, for like two years we knew each other…
L:  You went to Northwood for two years?
S:  Mmm-mmm (indicates yes) and then I worked at Fairies and Maxwell and Daddy continued to go to school for a couple more years and he worked at Penny’s.  I worked at Penny’s before I worked at…that’s where I got my job at Penny’s and I was working there and then I told them I was going to New York…it was just like a week before so I was able to take a vacation and then Daddy worked at…we both worked at Penny’s in Midland together for a while.  I worked in the men’s department.  And Daddy worked in shoes.
L:  He did?
S: Yep and he went to the general merchandise and he was upset that he didn’t get to be the manager right away…he wanted to start working there and be a manager right away.
(laughing)
S:  Even back then I had to say to him, well don’t worry, you’ll…you know, I knew the, we know the couple who had the job, who were managers, so I said you’ll be a manager soon but you have to work for a while before they just give you that position.  Then I had to help him pass his English test.
(laughing)
S:  So that’s our story.  That’s it for now…tah-tah.