February is just around the corner, and with it Valentine’s Day, which made me think of “The Shop Around the Corner,” the 1940 romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, which of course brought to mind “You’ve Got Mail,” the 1998 remake with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which also reminded me of meet cutes.
Like baseball cards in my boyhood, I now collect stories from couples of how they met. Here are two recent additions, the first prompted when my friend Wayne Kempton mentioned he and his bride were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
PB&J? Not caviar and lobster and local strawberries dipped in gourmet chocolate? There had to be a story, and a good one, so I asked and Wayne answered thusly…
“Shari and I eloped with a deep love, but very little earthly wealth. We had her ’59 Mercury convertible, one suitcase and two tennis rackets. And very little money. So, we economized en route, buying a loaf a bread, a jar of peanut butter and some cheese puffs that served as meals—many picnics, actually—on our way from Iowa to California.
“Each year since, we have celebrated August 29th with a feast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cheese puffs. And champagne—we were not only broke, but also too young for wine then!”
Instead of in a bookstore around the corner, they had met in a grocery store where they both worked.
“It was in September 1966,” Wayne says, reaching back. “We were beginning our senior year, and I was the new guy at school. We became high school sweethearts and got engaged a year later on our first day of college. Our plan was to get married after finishing college, but we eloped a year later. We eloped because both sets of parents were dead set against us even seeing each other.”
Their parents proved as wrong as pickles on a PB&J sandwich, for Wayne and Shari have now gone through, at 26 slices in an typical loaf of bread, more than four loaves and quite a few jars of jelly and peanut butter with 55 anniversary feasts to date.
Earlier this month my friend Rick Estberg shared his own “Shop Around the Corner” love story in screenplay form…
“On this exact date, 44 years ago, a young man sat next to a young woman in a very attractive green dress. It was their first day on new jobs at their Agency. Soon they dated. And then they became lovers. And eventually they got married. For years they would joke about that accidental first meeting and the dress, which perhaps magically brought them together on Day One.
“About 40 years later the young woman, now not so young anymore, grew very ill. The young man, now not so young anymore, was beside himself, being unable to make things right again.
“Then, a year ago, the old woman died. And the old man cried himself to sleep. That night he had a dream. A dream about a wonderful and lovely young woman in a very attractive green dress. And for as long as that dream lasted the old man was happy once again, reveling in the magic that she brought to him. And the world. Which leads to the following mythical exchange:
“ ‘I don’t believe in magic,’ said a young man one day, very self-assuredly.
“The old man, with a small tear in his eye, replied thoughtfully, ‘Ah, but you will one day—when you finally meet her.’ ”
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
