John, Judy, and Joslyn

In My Life 

John Lennon

John, Judy & Joslyn

John Lennon wrote about them; Judy Collins sang about them, places I’ll remember in my life.

I remember the staff lounge at the Economics Institute at CU, Boulder, the small, bare classroom where someone had set up a coffee machine.  I remember my first thought when she walked in. “I wonder if she’d marry me.”

I knew that she was coming on board that day, the new staff member.  We all did.  The faculty at the university’s prestigious Economics Institute was growing day by day.  Econ, math, business and English teachers were arriving daily.  Many of the instructors were noted professors who had taken on this teaching gig because of the connections, the location and the fun for which the Institute was known.  After meeting a series of stuffy, dry old men and women of the dismal science, I was not prepared for the shoulder length, shining black hair or the clear brown eyes.  Nor was I prepared for the tan, deep, smooth and rich, set off by her flowered blue mini dress.  Nor the smile, the legs, the body, the breath of aloha.  It was all over.

“I wonder if she’d marry me.” That’s exactly what I thought as Barbara, our secretary, introduced her.

“Gentlemen, this is Joslyn, our new English instructor.  Joslyn, this is Dr. Conroy, Bob, one of our program coordinators, and Mike, one of our English faculty.”

“Joslyn,” said Dr. Bob.  “Welcome!  We’ve been waiting for you.”  (Bob had no idea how true his words were.)  “Ready to get goin’?” Yes, she was.

I should have started with hello, but instead I asked, “Why did you move all over Georgetown?” The question came as a natural follow-up to – and replacement for – ‘will you marry me.’  It was plain from her expression, though, that my greeting had taken her completely by surprise.  To tell the truth, it took me by surprise as well, but it was all I could think to say at that moment.

As a graduate student at the university, I had had a campus job to help cover expenses.  I’d worked in the university alumni office.  Keeping alums connected is a fulltime job.  Especially if they keep moving from place to place.  Before spreadsheets and the Internet, it was a full time, manual job.  My job was to pull the 5 x 7 index cards which held all the information there was to know about a former student.  A very important, very active grad might even have 2 cards.

Joslyn had only one card, but it was especially interesting to me.  And I saw it often.  Joslyn and I shared a common undergraduate degree, from different universities in different parts of the country, but the same degree.  We were also pursuing the same graduate degree.  However, we had switched locations.  She was where I had been; I was where she had been.    While a student in Washington, D.C., Joslyn had moved often, from one address to another around Georgetown.   That’s how I had come to know her.  Every time she moved, the Postal Service let the Alumni Office know.  With each new address, there was a card pull and an address change.  Then there was a card refile.  In addition, Joslyn was from Hawaii; I wasn’t.  However, I was Irish; Ireland is an island.  Her name was beautiful, lyrical: Joslyn Kalaulani.  Mine was basic: Mike.

I loved pulling her card.

Now, I wondered if she’d marry me.  And all I could think to say nearly scared her off.

After my brief explanation, she was less put off. That was a relief because within the Institute, we shared an office space.  We both taught English.  We both had island roots.  So much in common.   I, however, was smitten and just a bit scared.  What scared me was the fact that, along with our stodgy old econ and math faculty, the Institute was staffed with young, healthy, friendly, outdoorsy men and women.  A lot of young men. Competition.

We did a lot together over the summer.  We, in this context, meant all those young, friendly, healthy, outdoorsy colleagues – and included our students.  Many of the students were also young.  But they were presidents, ministers, princes and servants-of-princes; they were wealthy, high ranking people from 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd world countries all over the world.  They were rich, eager to learn and anxious to enjoy the freedoms and the culture of university life in America.  They were fun.  Competition.

“You better make your move,” my buddy, Jim, a fellow faculty member had warned about mid way through the summer.  “If you don’t, I’ll take your place!  Or George.  Or Mark.  Somebody will.  Get movin’, guy!”  I wasn’t quite sure why he was giving me that nudge, but I was glad. I took his advice.

Rather than ask Joslyn to marry me right away, I started with a date – dinner and a play.  I had planned to get tickets to “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ and had made reservations at a popular restaurant in downtown. When I showed up at her door alone, Joslyn asked where everybody else was.  After all, we most everything together as a faculty, and here I was alone.  Doing something alone was — unusual.

The place we had chosen for dinner was a restaurant called Fondue Champenois.  The food was excellent.  The date, itself, was a disaster.  Although we had gotten to know each other fairly well as teachers, office mates, and participants in a lot of group activities, I was still scared to be alone with her.  Afraid of saying the wrong thing, of messing up, I said nothing.  At all.  At one point during the evening, Joslyn went to the restroom to talk to someone.  To anyone.

The play didn’t work out either.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, my hope for salvation, were not only dead but sold out. How there were any next steps after that, I do not know.

But the summer went on. The Institute was full of activities beyond classes. There were field trips into the Rockies, games on the quads between dorms, movies, parties and more. There was always a group of us working and having fun together. Later that summer, Joslyn was offered an excellent job at a prestigious education agency in yet another place, Portland, Oregon.  It would have been unfair for me to hold her back; on the contrary, I encouraged her to opt for the opportunity.  That was wise.  It made up for all the non-conversation on our one and only date.  She took the job while I remained in Boulder. At the end of the summer, she left for the Northwest.

Her position in Portland required a lot of travel throughout the region they served.  Somehow, though, she always seemed to have to travel through Denver.  Portland to Anchorage through Denver.  Portland to Palo Alto through Denver.  Even Portland to Honolulu – through Denver. (She had an amazing assistant!) Places I’ll remember all my life.

On one of these passes through Colorado, Joslyn and I sat in the back seat of a roommate’s beat up VW wagon. It was a chilly Rocky Mountain fall evening; we were alone on the car waiting for him to grab something from his apartment.  As we waited, spontaneity dropped in. In the cool of that evening, I wondered aloud, “Would you marry me?”  She said, “Yes.”

All these places have their moments with lovers and friends.

Later, though, as she continued her travels and had a chance to think over what had happened, she thought to herself, “I wonder if he knew what he was saying.”  She gave me an out.  “I won’t hold you to it,” she said gently.  “I’m not sure you really meant to ask me that.”

For Christmas that year, I invited Joslyn to travel to Pennsylvania to meet my family.  She said, “Yes.”  It was cold, snowy, far from her own family, and filled with my large extended Irish family whom she did not know at all.  On New Year’s Eve, amid Guy Lombardo, noisemakers, and partying cousins, I asked her again, “Will you marry me?”  She said, “Yes.”  This time there was no turning back.

Over the years, I remember so many places: Hawaii, Oahu, Kauai’i, The Big Island; I remember Pennsylvania, my mother’s house, our favorite Italian restaurants. I remember Boulder, moving to Washington, working in Seattle. I remember hospitals in Redmond, Seattle, and Boston. I remember traveling all over the state – and the country – for kids’ sports events. I remember our wonderful trip to Ireland.

It has been over forty years.  We have experienced good times and bad, sickness and health, life and death. Though children have grown, and grandchildren have come into our lives, though other people and places have come and gone, memories deepened and faded, I still see the shiny black hair, the deep brown eyes. I even see the flowered sun dress.  Though I know I’ll never lose affection for people and places that went before, I know I’ll often stop and think about them.  Now I think to myself, “I wonder if she would marry me…again?”

Just have to find the right place to ask….