In 1968, we both lived at the 1800 Jefferson apartments and that fall we met when I came upstairs to complain about the noise she and her three room mates were making. ![]() She had already been at two colleges so could not go to Mary Washington and then transfer to UVA for her senior year to get her speech pathology degree(BS in Ed.) So she was allowed as a third year student in 1966. This was before UVA officially admitted undergraduate women. Laurie and I met in 1967, our senior year. Our favorite memories include: watching "It's a Wonderful Life" in Old Cabell Hall at Christmas going to Clemons Library to study and watch old Woody Allen movies (which you could check out and watch there) hanging out at The Corner and sitting on the lawn last May to watch our son, Michael, graduate. We stayed together and were married in 1993. I went on to the Curry School and received a Masters in Teaching in 1992. Dave was an economics and psychology major and I was a biology major. We hung out a lot that spring, we especially enjoyed sunning ourselves in the field behind Lambeth. Dave was an avid cyclist and I saw him pedaling around campus quite a bit after that. He was a stone's throw away from my apartment. It turned out that we both lived in Lambeth Field and had never met. We met at a birthday party for a mutual friend and walked home together after the party. Despite an eventful evening, Toby rested blissfully on my arm, and the night was perfectly quiet except for the periodic moans and groans of the lactose intolerant dog who ate way too much.ĭave and I met second semester of our third year. The pristine summer night was quiet and still, and I relished my first few moments of being engaged. ![]() Later and still too excited to sleep, I laid in bed listening to my heart racing, thinking about the exciting future that awaits. I guess it really is the thought that counts. Despite the suddenly very unromantic setting, Toby said yes. Undaunted, I got down on one knee and proposed. Turns out, the house owner's dog made his way into our room and demolished the sweets. Upon closer inspection, my ring remained unharmed, still in the wrapper, oddly enough. Panicked, I thought I had been robbed by a remorseless burglar with a massive sweet tooth. The chocolates were gone! Only the wrappers remained. With my heart racing, I opened the door to find all of my handiwork ruined. We went to dinner nearby and returned to the room after dinner for "dessert". I cleverly (so I thought) planted the engagement ring inside one of the chocolate treats. I went early and bought an array of delicious chocolate treats (Toby's favorites) and displayed them around the room, interspersed with rose petals and love notes. I made us a secret reservation at a Bed and Breakfast just outside of Charlottesville. I made weekly commutes to UVA to visit Toby on weekends, and our relationship blossomed. I graduated and lived at home in Fredericksburg, VA for a year. While we had a pretty rocky start, both dating other people, we really hit our stride my last semester of school. While I was making plans for life after law school, the last thing I expected was to become lovesick over a silly little first year - but that's exactly what happened. I was a third year law student and Toby had just started her first year. Several careers, two wonderful kids, and many, many family visits to Greece later, we still are very thankful for our amazing University of Virginia romance. We soon moved into married student housing, F-7 University Gardens, where we remained until we graduated with our PhD's (Psych and Physics), to which John also added an MBA. Four months later we were married in the US, followed by a big (but not fat) Greek wedding in Athens in December '77. Four weeks later, pacing around the tiny apartment on Woodrow Street I shared with a landscape architecture student, John proposed to me. Soon afterwards, we had our first date at the Mousetrap on the Corner, sharing an enormous piece of cheesecake. Later that evening - to my great chagrin - he asked out a beautiful neighbor of mine, but I later learned that he spent the date quizzing her about me. John and I found ourselves upstairs, where there was a blackboard, and I blurted out the first thing I could think of: "Hey, I can write something in Greek." As he looked on politely, I wrote the name of something I remembered from college travels.Close-Up Toothpaste (ΚΛΟΣ-ΑΠ)! He stared at me for a moment and then disappeared. I learned from my friend that John was a Greek grad student in physics. ![]() One Thursday night early in 1977, I went to the International Club for the first time with a friend.
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