Helen Marchant:  

I was very quiet and shy during my years in school. After graduation, I worked for a Boston Ophthalmologist for a couple of years. It was a very interesting job and I learned alot from it. During that time my husband and I married in 1968 a year after graduating from high school. I met my husband in my senior year of high school. it was an unusual way of meeting. I was visiting another classmate on the other side of Watertown. We had walked quite a distance from her house to do some errands and unfortunately, i was wearing shoes that were fairly new and they began hurting me. As we continued to walk, my blister was getting worse so i took my shoes off. It was a very hot day that July and my girlfriend and i joked that if a guy stopped the car and asked if we wanted a ride, I was going to say yes because my feet were killing me. Well, lo and behold, Al pulled up in his red rambler and offered us a ride. You would think that I would have hesitated especially since this was during the boston strangler era and the eight nurses from chicago has just been murdered and don't forget, I was a shy quiet girl. Nope, we both got in the car, however, although three people could fit in the front seat, you could have put another person in between Al and myself. That's how far away from him we were at the time. He drove us to my girlfriend's house and thought we were sisters. As we were getting out of the car, he asked me for my name. I was unsure so I gave him a phoney name and ran into the house. In my mind I thought he was so goodlooking and nice and why didn't I give him my real name.......After awhile, Al came back to the house and asked us if we wanted to get an ice cream. We said Yes, mainly because I told my girlfriend that I should have given him my real name because i liked him.......Anyway, after we returned from getting ice cream, I ended up giving him my real name and phone number and clarified that I didn't live there and we were not sisters, although my girlfriend and I had that kind of friendship and still do all to this day. Al and I dated for two years before we married. We felt we could never tell our daughter how we met because we always stressed not to hitchhike and how would it look if we told our daughter that her mother accepted a ride from a total stranger and married him? Al and I discovered that although we met in another area, we only lived a block apart and hung around the same places, yet never really knew each other. We even shared a class when he was a senior (study), but then seniors weren't interested in sophomores, so that would explain that, wouldn't it?). Anyway, Al and I lived in watertown for five years before he was transferred to connecticut. Our two sons were born in boston, however, our daughter was born in connecticut. We were married for 18 years before divorcing. we stayed divorced for 8 years and then remarried to each other in a fantastic weekend party wedding that our kids loved (being teenagers at that time) and we have been married again for the last 18 years. A love story that many have said should be put to a novel - perhaps a romantic comedy? We have three children two boys and our youngest is a girl- all married with children of their own and our oldest has hit the big 40. The others are fast approaching themselves. (boy, do we feel old...Expand for more