The first time I became aware of Gilda’s existence was in June 1969.
We were attending a meeting organized by the incoming president of Brooklyn College’s House Plan Association, an organization of more than 80 social clubs, each with a maximum of 35 members. House plans were similar to fraternities but, given BC was a commuter school, they did not provide residential accommodations.
Aside from being president of Knight House, I was the editor of “Calling Card,” the HPA newspaper. Gilda was president of Russell House. She also was the first female ever elected to student government.
Meeting in the basement of a single-family home, I sat in a chair at one end of the room. Gilda sat on a high riser couch on the other side of the basement.
After the meeting she asked if I was interested in her contributing articles on student government. Sure, I replied.
Over the summer we went our separate ways, I to be a division head counselor in a summer camp outside Albany. Gilda stayed in Brooklyn. She was a seamstress in a Greenwich Village clothing store, making, among other garments, a cape for Frank Sinatra. In the Village she spotted a poster for a three-day concert in the Catskills. She bought four tickets to Woodstock which she ultimately gave to a friend who never made it to the music festival because of the massive traffic jam on Route 17.
In September I entered my senior year. Gilda was a junior. Every so often we’d meet in the Calling Card office in the basement of LaGuardia Hall, during an HPA meeting, or see each other at our respective house plan tables in the Boylan Hall cafeteria.
In early December, as we were both standing at the mailbox cubby holes in LaGuardia Hall, Gilda made her move. Invited to a pre-Christmas party at the Brooklyn Heights home of one of her political science professors, she asked me to accompany her. I agreed, but only if she would go with me to an HPA co-sponsored concert featuring Tom Paxton and Dick Gregory the week before. Being a Tom Paxton fan, Gilda quickly accepted my terms.
(A slight digression—Dick Gregory was a late replacement for Mort Sahl. Ticket prices were $2.75, $3.25 and $3.75. As editor of Calling Card my $3.75 tickets were comped. For those wondering or amazed at my knowledge of the ticket prices, I checked my bound volume of Calling Card issues, a birthday gift from Gilda in 1971.)
Thus began our life together, formally consecrated in marriage 50 years ago, January 28, 1973.
As my friends and family know, I’ve been the prime beneficiary of this union. I’ve had a front row seat to Gilda’s development as a wife, homemaker, mother, grandmother, nurse, nurse practitioner, and community resource. To support my contention I offer two blog postings from 2019:
https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-tribute-to-gilda-on-her-70th-birthday.html
https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-my-fair-lady-for-46-years.html
