Life with Alan

Well, folks I met Alan in November,1959, and I can't say it was love at first sight, but pretty close. We were a couple by January of 1960 -- that was the first time he called me "Honey." Boy was that a thrill.

We met each day at either my locker or his locker and he walked me to my homeroom and went on to his, then he would meet me after homeroom and walk me to my first class. After that we didn't see each other until lunch. Fortunately, we had the same lunch time -- there were three separate lunch times that year. Then he walked me to my after lunch class and then we saw each other for a few minutes at the end of the school day because he had to catch a bus. I walked to and from school.

On Hi-BA days, he walked home with me (sneaking hand holding) and of course we talked and talked and talked on the phone at night. One night we talked so long his dad hung up the phone on us. I mean Dad Hahn actually pushed the button and cut off the conversation mid-sentence.

At the end of the school year, we saw each other infrequently during that summer because he lived kind of far away -- probably 10-15 miles by roads, and hitch-hiking, while popular and pretty safe back then was an option, but he lived out in the country and cars were few and far between. So we saw each other whenever his dad was traveling through Runnemede and he would leave Alan at our house and then pick him up on his way home from wherever he was going to.

On August 8, 1960, I thought my life was over. Alan left for Kenya on a freighter call the Robin Gray. I didn't hear from him for six weeks because that's how long the trip was -- it went by way of so many ports. And while I had the port locations and sent mail to him at the various ports, which he received, I didn't get mail from him quite so fast. Foreign mail is, well, it's foreign and slow.

That began three years of letter writing and my daily visits to the Runnemede post office. No e-mail or cell phones in those days. And no IM with pictures either.

In August of 1963 he returned to the USA and since he was on his own we could pretty much see each other as often as our school schedules would allow. He was at Rutgers in Central Jersey, and I was at Glassboro State in South Jersey. So, basically one of us hopped on a bus to the other's location, preplanned, and we visited with each other on weekends. When he came south he stayed with his Aunt Virginia, and when I went north, I stayed in the dormatory at Douglas -- the female school. At that time Rutgers was all male and Douglas was all female. That changed shortly after we left Rutgers.

After two years of this we had had enough and decided to get married and after a year-long engagement, we did, pledging our love to each other for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. We've had better and worse, we've definitely had poorer rather than richer, and of late we've had a spate of sickness. But God has been good and I couldn't have a better husband that the one He gave me. Alan is the love of my life and while my children don't think so, I still get a thrill out of seeing him every day. I still get that tingle when he smiles (which isn't very often), and I still depend on him to make the hard decisions in my life.

He is still my sweetheart. My honey-oney (pronounced won eee). My stud muffin. My sweetie. And I'm still his "me" (that's because when i call him on the phone, I always say it's me, and he say's, hello "me."), Jude, Judith, hon. His darling twosie (after I call him honey-oney).

We fit each other perfectly. But then, what God has joined, etc., etc., etc.

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