Our first evening - June 24th - PART TWO

I do not recall a large part of that evening, and it wasn't the drugs, or the alcohol, or being swept up in Ellyn's allure; nope it is just a vast expanse of time. Besides, at the time, I did not think it would particularly be an evening to remember, so I forgot to take notes. I do remember spending some time at the friends' home and sitting out by their pool chatting, all of them probably curious about this stranger that Ellyn had plunked down in their midst.

I will assume I was my usual witty self and hardly put together more than a few words all evening. Ellyn has already mentioned her dismay at find out I was a seasoned war veteran, although I do not believe escaping safely into the submarine Navy at a time when I could have been easily drafted into the infantry of Viet Nam was any kind of battle-tested badge of courage. I guess when the full facts came to light, she had pity for me rather than flaming hatred.

Our first evening - June 24th - PART ONE

As we mentioned in the last post, my little house was clean. Geoff and I had made plans for Geoff to pick me up to join a get-together at my friends' home. By the way, I was pretty proud that, as a 25 year old single woman that I owned my own home. It was a typical San Jose bungalo with about 1000 square feet, 3 little bedrooms, a fairly large kitchen, and a big two car garage. My father had loaned me the down payment to purchase the $36,000 home.

So, that evening, Geoff came to pick me up at my house. I recall him coming in and in those first few minutes together, I learned that Geoff had been in the Navy in the years from 1967 to 1973. Up until this time of my life, the peers in my life were almost 100% anti-war liberals. And during the years 1969-1973 when I had been at the University of Washington, I could easily be described as a "antiwar hippy". Here's some articles from that time period at UW: http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2308/>

Learning that Geoff had been in the Navy while I was protesting the war gave me the first impression that we didn't have anything in common.

I had wanted to post a photo of me from my war-protesting college "hippy" years but, so far, I can't find the photo album so instead I found this photo from the web to give you the idea.