I met the mother of my children almost 34 years ago in a nightclub in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had resigned from the police department to finish my college degree and was living in a singles-only apartment complex called Spanish Gardens which, at the time, was the hottest property in the city. The waiting list to move in there was two years long and it was only because of connections I had developed as a police officer that allowed me to jump ahead of several hundred who were already on the list.

 

My roommate and I both worked at Jose's. This was a nightclub located in the center of the complex and, because it featured a great rock and roll band six nights a week, it was the focal point for most of the R&R that went on at night and on the weekends. We were both finishing our shifts one Friday night when a friend I had attended the University of Arkansas with walked in the door with the most stunning woman I had ever seen. My friend asked me to have a drink with them.

 

As we sat down, he introduced me to his date and it was hard for me to take my eyes off her. I had heard about love at first sight, had talked about it, had listened to songs about it, and had read poems and stories about it but this was my first experience with it. I had met her only minutes earlier and only knew her first name but I knew this was the woman I was supposed to marry. After a couple of more drinks, I invited them back to my apartment, along with the girl I was dating at the time, to talk about our college days.

 

I put on the new live album Smokey Robinson and the Miracles had just released, made us some drinks, and we talked and laughed for the next two or three hours. Along about 2 or 3 in the morning, my friend said that he and his date were going to the Arkansas-Texas football game the next day and he invited us to go with them. As some of you know, there are no bad ideas at 2 or 3 in the morning after a few cocktails, so we agreed. They left shortly afterwards and my friend said something about picking us up around nine the next morning.

 

The next thing I know, the telephone was ringing. I opened one eye, looked at the clock, saw that it was only nine o'clock in the morning, took the receiver off the hook, (no cell phones or cordless phones in 1973) and went back to sleep. In what seemed like just seconds later, someone was banging on my front door. I put my pillow over my head trying to drown out the noise and closed my eyes again, only to hear the banging move from the door to my bedroom window. My girlfriend told me I had better see who it was before they broke the window so I climbed out of bed, opened the curtains, and saw my friend and the girl from the night before, holding football tickets in the air.

 

"You're not even dressed," he yelled out. "Hurry up or we're going to miss the kick-off."

"What kickoff?" I sincerely asked. "You guys are going to the Razorbacks game with us, don't you remember?" "No, I don't remember," I replied, "and I'm not going to any football game. I'm going back to bed." I closed the curtains and fell back into bed. The banging began again.

 

My girlfriend told me she didn't think he was going to take no for an answer so we begrudgingly got up, got dressed, and left for Fayetteville with my insistent friend and his date. After we finally woke up, we actually had a good time, except for the game. The Hogs were having a down year and got shellacked, 34-6 by their arch-rivals. But the ride over was pleasant, the steaks after the game were delicious and the conversations the four of us had were stimulating. On the way back to Tulsa, my friend stopped for gas and when he did, his date turned around and handed me a piece of paper. My date was already asleep so I stuck it in my pocket and went to sleep too.

 

The next day as I was changing out my pockets, the piece of paper she had slipped me the night before fell out on the floor. I picked it up, unfolded it and saw that it was a bank deposit slip. She had circled her telephone number and written the words "call me" under her number.

I immediately called my friend and told him what had happened. I also told him the feeling that had hit me when I first saw her and that I was calling him out of friendship to tell him I was going to ask her out. He said it was okay because he and she really didn't seem to have much in common. I hung up the phone, called her, and asked her out for that night. She accepted.

 

When I picked her up, we went to her favorite restaurant for coffee. I told her then what I had felt the first time I saw her face, just 48 hours before, and she told me she had felt exactly the same thing when she first saw me. We had our second date the next night and I asked her to marry me. She accepted and we were married six weeks later in the honeymoon suite of the Camelot Inn Hotel in Tulsa by Revered Eric Hollard, a delightful chap, originally from Australia, who was the Senior Minister at The First Methodist Church in downtown Tulsa. The only reason we waited six weeks was because it took that long to get the invitations printed up and mailed out.

 

My friends and her friends got together before our wedding and started a pool on how long we would be married. It cost ten dollars to enter. There was a lot of money in the pool. The most pessimistic prediction was a week or less. The most optimistic was one to two years. Everybody thought we were nuts, including our families.

 

Our friends and family members were ultimately right of course. Linda and I did get a divorce. But thanks to my friend, Ralph Bauer, and his persistence on the day of the Arkansas-Texas game in 1973, it took us almost 26 years to do it. And even though she and I are no longer in love with each other, we were better together than anyone else we knew for a very long time.

 

That's how some people fall in love.