Meeting Coleen

The fact that our paths crossed and intersected is almost hard to believe. We were in separate towns, states, frames of mind and situations. Yet somehow something opened a door of opportunity for us to meet each other. Hard for me to explain but let me try.

In 1979, I was living in Cleveland, Ohio where I had pretty much grown up and spent most of my life. I was 26 years old, divorced, with one six year old daughter, two brothers and my Mom all nearby. I had been estranged from my wife Pam for about  a year and divorced for a few months. I was living in a rather modest (cheap) one bedroom apartment with tile floors and metal cabinets. Pam and I had married young, had a baby a few months less than nine, and started wondering what we had missed. At least I did.

Before, during and after the divorce, I was enjoying my new life to the fullest. I was not behaving well. I was at that time employed as a sales representative for a company that manufactured semi-trailers. In that job, I was expected to make sales calls on trucking companies that would have a need for my product. My workday consisted of being in the office for a few hours or so each day and then leaving to call on customers.

I gradually fell into the habit of seeing less customers and having longer lunches. And sometimes those long lunches would turn into happy hours. I recognized the road I was on wasn’t exactly a highway to success so I talked to my boss. I admitted to him that I was having a hard time with self discipline and would like to work in an inside position as a service writer or parts manager. I thought I would be more valuable to the company and myself that way. “Sorry,” he said. “No openings right now but I’ll keep it in mind. Now get back to work.”

About a week later he called me in his office and told me about an opening for a Parts Manager in Buffalo, NY and asked me if that interested me. Buffalo? Isn’t that where it snows all year and the temperature is never above freezing except for August?

Something about it intrigued me, though. So off I went for an interview and tour. I kind of liked it there. It seemed friendly and was only about 3-1/2 hours from Cleveland. They made me an offer.

To this day I look back at that decision and just wonder. There was something about saying “yes” that seemed so natural and so right. I was leaving my daughter, brothers, friends and Mom behind in Cleveland to move 200 miles east on I-90 to Buffalo, NY. And the whole thing seemed so right. It was almost like I asked, “Why wouldn’t I go?”

At about the same time in an entirely different orbit, resided a girl named Coleen Marie Kurzdorfer. She was only 19 that year and was attending college at Alabama University. Coleen was a Buffalo girl born and raised and went to Alabama because she could and because it got her away from her family. She was the oldest of five children and had much responsibility in that role. Unwanted responsibilty for the most part. Coleen had done some travelling by then with trips to California and a few months in Texas.

At Alabama she met a boy from Minnesota and I don’t know his name. Anyway they fell in love down there and got engaged. They were to be married during the summer of 1980 in Buffalo where they would also make their home.

After moving to a suburb southwest of Buffalo in November, 1979, I settled into my job and tried to carve out some kind of local social life. Many of my weekends would be spent returning to Cleveland for visits with my daughter, family and friends. And I also hosted visitors from their at my place frequently. Locally, I didn’t do much. I dated a couple girls briefly but nothing serious. Much of my social life was spent with friends I had made at work. A few times a week we would have a cocktail or two after work at a local restaraunt called Major Hooples. It was an old boarding house with good food and friendly bartenders.

At one point within about six months of moving, I was having second thoughts. I started thinking about moving back to Cleveland and how I could find a job there. Sometime in the summer of 1980 a friend of mine told me about an opening where he worked that he thought would be perfect for me and we set up an interview. I didn’t get that job or any others.

About that same time in Buffalo, Coleen had returned from Alabama and was working on all the things about weddings, showers, apartments and being a bride. They had rented an an apartment and she got a job waitressing downtown. There was a wedding shower in Buffalo and one on Minnesota where he was still staying until the wedding in August. And Coleen had found an apartment in the neighborhood where she grew up and where her family still lived. She was moving in furniture, painting and unpacking shower gifts. And starting to have her own second thoughts.

Coleen talked a lot to her sister Karen. They were always close and referred to themselves as “sisters and best friends.” Karen was the first one to hear Coleen say that she wasn’t sure. That maybe this wasn’t the right thing to do after all. That maybe she didn’t really love this guy. They had kind of a carefree college romance and now that things like reality were starting to set in, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Karen tried to tell her it was fine, she was just getting nervous plus she wasn’t with her fiance then either.

But Coleen knew better and made her decision. She told her father that she couldn’t do it. Then she told her fiance. Then she told everyone else. And she swore off men for a year.

Since I was rejected for that job in Cleveland, I had become a little more settled in my new home. I was getting more comfortable with the idea of living in Buffalo and had met some more people. I even dated a little more, mostly a tall girl from work named Lynn. My friends from work continued our more than occassional happy hours at Major Hooples.

I don’t know why I didn’t notice her before I did. Or maybe I did notice but didn’t say anything. Anyway, sometime in the middle of that summer of 1980, a new girl was waitressing at Major Hooples. She was cute and I really noticed how she carried herself. There was something about the way she wore her shoulders and her legs and the way she walked. She had a big smile sometimes but mostly just seemed to go about her business without showing it. And she had very big, beautiful brown eyes.

She wasn’t always there when I was but I always checked to see. A few weeks, maybe more, passed when I finally asked Keith, the bartender, about her. “Hey, Keith. That girl there, with the dark hair, what’s her story?” It was always nice to have a little background before making a fool of yourself. “That’s Coleen, but forget about her,” Keith replied. I asked him why. “She was supposed to get married in a couple weeks but cancelled the wedding. She said she’s swearing off men for at least a year.”

I told him I didn’t really care about that, I just wanted to meet her. Keith suggested that I have dinner and he’d make sure that Coleen was my waitress. So Idid that and used my best flirting skills on her. I remember making her smile a few times and I remember ordering beef stoganoff. She didn’t seem disgusted with me. After dinner I returned to the bar for a  nightcap and Keith took me aside. “You want to give her a ride home?” I answered,” What? Sure I do, but what are you talking about?

Keith explained, “I was supposed to give her a ride but I told her something came up and I wouldn’t be able to. But that you live close to her and would give her a ride.” “And I told her you were a good guy, not to worry.”

What a bartender! I thanked him and tipped him quite generously. And I gave Coleen a ride home in my 1978 white Ford Granada. I was still not very familiar with Buffalo geography and when she told me where she lived I had to ask her how to get there. Coleen started to give me directions and then stopped and asked “Where do you live?” When I told her Hambug, which was probably 30 minutes in the opposite direction, she realized she was kind of set up. I remember her laughing about it and we stopped at a Ground Round restaurant on the way to her house for a cocktail.

Coleen and I sat in that Ground Round talking and laughing for a couple of hours before I took her home. I remember her telling me her last name (Kurzdorfer) and trying to remember it. I also remember walking her to her door. I kissed her. She kissed me back. I called her the next day and we started dating.

That’s how I define fate.