2

Love

In 1962, I graduated from Evander Childs High School. My parents hoped I'd get a job with security and a pension, but I knew I wasn’t a 9-to-5er kind of guy. I had other plans for my life but not much clue what they might be. Since computer programming appeared to be the wave of the future, I decided to enroll in a six-month course in computer programming at Monroe Business School in The Bronx.

At that time, computers were in their infancy. Before any computations could be made, all the data had to first be entered onto little cards by key punch operators before feeding the cards into a computer bigger than a refrigerator. The programming part I was learning involved placing little wire plugs into circuit boards. This seemed like tedious, boring work to me. Instead of going to class, I spent a lot of time in the poolroom across the street from Monroe. By graduation, I had learned to shoot a decent game of pool but not much about making a living in the computer age. While many of my classmates went on to lucrative careers in computer programming, I still had to figure out what I was going to do with my life besides becoming the next Minnesota Fats. I wasn’t too bright.

After class, a group of us from Monroe met at Saul’s Luncheonette on

172nd Street. I was sipping a coke at the counter when I first set eyes on Georgann Marino who was taking a secretarial course at Monroe. Georgann really stood out from the other girls. She was tall and slender but still curvy; her dark brown hair was frosted and teased high in the style of the day. Her big, brown eyes with their tiny flecks of gold that glinted in the sunlight drew me like a moth to a flame. She accented her long lashes with lots of mascara and when she fluttered them at me my heart skipped a beat. Her nose was a bit too wide but her luscious mouth, out of which came only softly spoken words, had me hanging on them like a puppet on a string. She was my dream girl.

Soon Georgann and I sat together at Saul’s shutting out the rest of the group as if they didn’t exist. If we passed each other in the hall at Monroe, she would lower her head; look up at me through those long lashes and whisper a soft, „Hi, Al.” My knees would buckle. I fell for Georgann hard. Even before we had our first date, it was too late for me to cut my emotions and run.

Georgann and I both graduated at the same time from Monroe. She g