Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.” — Sam Levenson

Every year around August 24, I republish the story of my first date with Betty. Some of you have read it several times. Some probably skip directly to the ending. And some may wonder how many different ways one guy can write about a first date that happened 54 years ago.

Apparently, quite a few.

The facts don't change. Betty initially turned me down. I eventually talked her into going out with me. I promised a waitress, in writing on two cocktail napkins, that I would find her another job and pay her fine if she got caught serving my underage date. The romantic restaurant I planned to take Betty to had mysteriously disappeared. We ended up eating hamburgers and fries at McDonald's.

And somehow, 23 months later, we were married.

What changes each year isn't the story. What changes is what I see in it.

At one time, I thought it was mostly a funny story about persistence and a first date that almost became a disaster.

• After 54 years, I see something different. I see friendship in Bill Simpson deciding we belonged together and Rick Bower lending me his VW Beetle.
• I see a little youthful confidence—or stupidity—in those two cocktail napkins.
• I see persistence in asking Betty out again after she had already said no.
• And, obviously, I see love, although in our case it probably wasn't love at first sight. It may have been love at the 22nd sight.

Mostly, though, I see how little we understand the significance of some moments while we are living them.

On August 24, 1972, neither of us knew we were beginning a story we would still be telling 54 years later. We were two young people trying to get through a first date, and for a while, one of us was probably trying to determine whether the other one had deliberately driven her into the woods in a borrowed Volkswagen.

Last month, we celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary. This week, we'll celebrate the anniversary of the night that started it all by returning, appropriately enough, to McDonald's.

I still remember the date of our first date, and I think dates—and dates—that change your life deserve to be remembered.

My long-range goal hasn't changed either. In 2032, I hope to publish “Two Sixty-Year-Old Cocktail Napkins.”

More important, I hope Betty and I are sitting at McDonald's together when I do.

I love you, Betty. Thanks for saying yes the second time.

We were just kids, of course, with absolutely no idea what life had in store for us. I knew within a couple of weeks of that first date that she was the girl of my dreams. I think it took her a little longer to categorize me in a similar fashion.

Looking back 54 years later, what strikes me most isn't just that I remember the date so clearly. It's that almost nothing about it went according to plan, and somehow everything worked out.

I've never been one to kiss and tell, and in this first-date story there isn't even a kiss to tell about. But the highlights are more or less etched in stone.

Act 1: Getting the Date

Bill Simpson was my Big Brother in the fraternity, and after graduation he went to work at the University Book Store. A year later, a new woman began working at the information desk—my future wife, Betty. About a year after that, I also began working part time at the bookstore, creating logoed and graphic T-shirts.

The day my first paycheck was supposed to arrive, I walked up to the beautiful woman behind the information desk and asked whether the checks had come in. She curtly replied, “No.” Well then.

I went back to work and sometime later—I don't remember exactly how long I waited—I returned to the information desk looking for some more “information” about my check. This time I got something along the lines of, “I'll let you know when they're here.” I translated that as either don't be a pest or don't bother me again or else.

Either way, this was not an especially promising beginning to a lifelong romance.

Many months later, after I had left the bookstore, my Big Brother decided to play matchmaker. Apparently, Betty's current boyfriend didn't exactly have her on the pedestal Bill thought she deserved, and Bill thought I might be a better match.

He found his opening when Betty, whose brother was coaching soccer at a local high school, wanted to buy him a book about coaching. Since I was a soccer player, Bill volunteered my expertise. I returned to the bookstore and helped Betty select a book for her brother.

Pretty simple. Somehow, shortly after that, I summoned the courage to make the big move and called to ask her out. She said no.

I remember exactly what I said next, and 54 years later, so does she: “Let me pick myself up off the floor.” Apparently, that display of charm kept the door from closing permanently because the next time I asked her out, I got something resembling a definite maybe.

And that brings us to August 24.

Act 2: The Big Man on Campus

The brand-new UMass Campus Center had a beautiful lounge on the top floor with great views of the campus and low lighting, if you know what I mean. I suggested that Betty meet me there for a drink when she got off work.

There was one problem. She wasn't 21 yet, and campus was pretty strict at the time. You needed a very convincing fake ID to get served.

What Betty didn't know was that one of the waitresses at the Top of the Campus Bar was in an English class with me. So, pretending to be a considerably bigger man on campus than I actually was, I confidently said, “I can get you served.”

That apparently clinched the date.

There was only one small problem: I hadn't actually asked the waitress yet.

It was about 4:00 p.m., and I had approximately an hour to turn my bravado into reality. I scrambled upstairs, found my classmate and asked her to serve the woman I was bringing in.

She refused. Uh-oh.

She explained, quite reasonably, that she could get fired. “I'll find you another job,” I told her. After some negotiation she said, “Put it in writing.”

So, on a cocktail napkin, I wrote: “I will find you another job if you get fired for serving my date.”

She read it and then asked, “What if I get fined?” “Of course,” I replied. “I'll pay your fine.” That went onto a second cocktail napkin.

With my contractual obligations now apparently in order, I met Betty at the bookstore when she got off work. We rode the elevator to the tenth floor, sat at the prearranged table in my classmate's section and both ordered an alcoholic beverage.

My future wife had to be impressed, right? Actually, she was.

The first part of the actual date was a success. Now I just had to pull off dinner.

That's where things became interesting.

At the time, I worked as a houseboy at the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority, which was considerably more fun than working at the bookstore.

In exchange for helping the cook, cleaning the kitchen, setting the dining room and serving formal dinner in white waiter coats five nights a week, we ate free.

We were also allowed to stay around for an hour after cleanup to play ping-pong or hang around. And we were occasionally useful as last-minute platonic dates when someone needed an escort to an event, so we probably got asked out about as often as we did the asking.

About a year before I met Betty, Lisa, the kitchen steward at KKG, had been worthy of the crush I had on her. We went on one date to the Delaney House in Holyoke, about ten miles from campus.

The place made an impression on me. It was an old mansion set far back from the road, reached by a winding drive through the woods. We sat in front of a fireplace in a candlelit room. It was awesome.

It was exactly the kind of place I wanted to take this woman who, just a short time earlier, had been illegally drinking with me at the Top of the Campus Bar.

I had borrowed a fraternity brother's Volkswagen Beetle, and after our drinks we headed toward Holyoke as dusk turned into night. I turned off US 5 and drove approximately 600 yards up the winding two-lane road.

And then...nothing.

No restaurant. No lights. No people. Nothing.

There we were, two people on a first date, sitting in a very small Volkswagen Bug in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by darkness. We were both nervous, but for entirely different reasons.

I knew there was supposed to be a restaurant there. Betty was probably beginning to wonder whether there had ever been a restaurant there.

As I stammered my confusion and mumbled apologies, she began polishing the passenger-side door as she moved farther and farther away from me. There wasn't much room left to move. She couldn't get out, probably wanted to, and I don't think she believed a word I was saying. So much for the romantic candlelit dinner.

I quickly turned the Beetle around and headed back toward Amherst. By then, we were both hungry, and eventually I pulled into the McDonald's on Route 9 in Hadley.

And that is where we had dinner on our first date: burgers and fries.

No mansion. No fireplace. No candlelight. Just McDonald's.

Years later—not two or three years later, but perhaps ten or fifteen—we came across a story about the fire at the Delaney House.

Finally, Betty believed me.

Fifty-Four Years Later

There are moments in life when you know something important is happening: graduations, weddings, births, promotions and retirements. Then there are the moments that don't look particularly important at all while we're living them.

A woman behind an information desk telling you your paycheck hasn't arrived. A friend suggesting you help somebody find a soccer coaching book. A woman turning you down for a date. Two ridiculous promises written on cocktail napkins. A restaurant that isn't there. Two nervous kids sitting in a Volkswagen in the dark. Hamburgers and fries at McDonald's.

Somehow, one ordinary, imperfect and slightly disastrous evening became the beginning of everything that followed.

That may be one of life's greatest lessons: we don't always recognize the important moments while we're living them. We tend to notice the milestones because they announce themselves. The smaller moments usually don't.

Sometimes the plan fails. Sometimes the restaurant disappears. Sometimes the evening you hoped would be perfect becomes memorable precisely because it wasn't.

And sometimes, if you're very fortunate, 54 years later you can look across the table at the same person and realize that the wrong restaurant led you to exactly the right place.

I wish I still had those two cocktail napkins. I don't.

But I still have the pedestal. And, much more importantly, I still have Betty.

On August 24, we'll celebrate the 54th anniversary of our first date the way tradition now demands.

We'll go to McDonald's. I'm still a big spender.

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