Back to didymus7.... Back to Main....
Through this whole time, the one thing I never thought would happen would be marriage...mine. Little did I know that events were taking place to place me with the woman I most wanted, even if I didn't know her.
It began back in 1979, in December when I received a notice for Jury Duty. I did the first thing anybody does the first time they get jury duty: Swear and try to figure out how to get out of it! In those days, you were actually 'sentenced' to the courthouse for 4 weeks, Tuesday through Friday and called for any jury panels they wanted. Over and over again.
So I packed up my chess books and headed to downtown New Haven, to the 9th floor, deciding that at least I'll get a few weeks of studying in. Of course there were a lot of people there, I checked out the chicks...;). There was one, a tall brunette 5'10" with glasses (if you've gathered by now, I have an affinity for ladies wearing glasses). However, I decided that this wasn't the place to do any 'picking up', so for the first day I found a quiet room and studied chess. The next day we were called to a panel and a large number, probably 25 of us wandered across the street to the criminal courthouse. One interesting thing was that they provided puzzles everywhere we went, and this pretty brunette (who I noticed was wearing a diamond---rats) was constantly at the puzzles. This time I actually got picked for the jury. You'll find the rest of that story under Jury Duty (when I get that part written). So did the brunette.
So...for the first day of the trial, I was there early, reading a book in the Jury Room, when the brunette walks in, sits down beside me, whacks the book and says, "What're you reading?" Her name was Theresa, but she had been called that all her life by her family, so she preferred to be called Terry. Even though she was engaged, we began to spend all jury duty time together, mostly making puzzles. Terry would ask me a lot of questions and being the clueless guy I was (heck, I could see the diamond!), never occurred to me this was something other than friendship.
Realization occurred to me when I went off on a jury panel and Terry didn't. I was dead last for interviewing, so I never got to the stand and ended up walking out about 5:30 pm. When I stuck my hand into my jacket, there was a note from Terry...signed 'Love'. Talk about being leveled!
However there was more to the story....we tried a date, but Terry was having conscience problems about being engaged to one guy and going out with another. After jury duty, Terry sent me a 'Dear Steve' letter, just in time for my birthday. Strangely enough I had just sent her roses for Valentine's Day, and wow, did she have emotional turmoil then as she had already sent me the letter!
Terry got married in July of that year. She and her husband lived in the same town as I did. So one Fall Saturday, Terry called me, while hubby was out at the Yale game. Now followed a long period where we talked on the phone periodically and exchanged letters once a week. Of course, I had to send the letters to her parents house. Strangely enough, this turned out NOT to be an affair, we did not physically meet again until 4 years later! In the meantime, we talked about all sorts of things and pretty much got to be best friends. In the city of only 65,000 that we lived, we never ran into each other. In the meantime, Terry had two kids and in a fit of creativity, I changed her name to Taeri. She loved the change, still does.
Things came to a head over a really miniscule thing and a slip of the tongue...in August of 1984, I was scheduled to go into the hospital for the removal of 4 wisdom teeth. I was planning to call a cab to get to the hospital (it was in New Haven and I didn't want to leave my car for two days in the hospital parking lot). When I talked to Taeri that Saturday at our regular weekly call, I flippantly asked her if she would drive me to the hospital. She agreed. Taeri was really nervous, plus she had the kids and a neighbor's kid, so here were 3 little ones, 3 and under in the back seat.
To cut the story shorter, Taeri even picked me up (when the hospital operator called my room, I was told 'your family is here'--very prophetic words). Two weeks later, Taeri left her husband and we were married about a year later. As of 2003, it's almost 18 years now!
Here's a picture from our wedding: