A Tribute To My Husband

Honestly, I can think of absolutely no person in the world who doesn't admire and truly like my dear husband, Dick. There was only one that didn't like him, but that was a very long time ago. Want to know who that person was? ME........Yes, my first experience meeting my husband to be was a bad one. I must tell you how it happened:

I was working, happily I might add, for the Chaterbox Dress Shop in Van Nuys, California. The year was 1971. My neice, Nancy, was working for I.T.T. Gilfillan , a subsidiary of I.T.T. that manufactured radar, which was sold mostly to the Navy. It seems that a vacancy opened up in the P.M.O. (Program Management Office) and she called me as soon as she heard about it to tell me that I should drop everything and come interview for the position. I had been working as a Bookkeeper for many years and I thought that it wouldn't hurt for me to look into it. To make a long story short, I interviewed, was hired on the spot and went to work almost immediately. My job was as a Statistic Analyst. Gilfillan was then a very large company with many different departments. My boss, Sam, was an almost attorney (going to law school at the company's expense). I got along with him very well. One day he told me to go over to Accounting and get some data from a book called the BPR (Budget Performance Report) to get some data that I needed for a report I had to do monthly. When I got to the Accounting Dept. I found out that this enormous book was kept in the Manager's Office, the manager being one Dick Robbins. When I walked into the office and told the manager I needed this data, he told me where the book was and I actually was able to get the info I required. When I started to leave, I remembered that Sam had asked me to get some information from Robbins. I said to him, "Oh, by the way, Sam asked for you to inform me what this BPR is all about, so that I can tell him." He was sitting forward in his chair, and he rocked back as far as it would go, looked me over and replied, "You can tell Sam Carfano that if he wants to know what is in this book, he can darned well come over and see for himself." Talk about being intimidated. I fled the office back to my own, almost in tears, because it was only my third day there and I felt a bit overwhelmed anyway. Needless to say, whenever the time came around for me to get my info, I really didn't want to go. Fortunately I had made a friend who worked in Accounting and I asked her to get the data I needed, so I didn't have to confront Robbins at all. If ever I saw him coming down the hall, I would go in the opposite diresction.

Fast forward now to a luncheon that was given for a man who was leaving the company. Nancy and I were to go together, but unfortunately, we were a bit late and there were only two seats left and one of them was right next to Dick Robbins!! I told Nancy that she had to sit by him, but she wanted to sit by this other guy so she took that seat and I was left with no alternative. It felt really weird, but at least Dick started some conversation and somhow I learned that he loved to sing and that he had been in a performing choir back in Indiana. I told him I could arrange for himh to audition for this choir that performed once in a while with our Symphony. I also told him that I was professional violinist with the San Fernando Symphony Orchestra. Music was a good thing for conversation and I found out that he wasn't such a bad guy after all. I even got a comp ticket for him to attend our concerts.

He did audition for the choir, joined it, and came to our Symphony concerts for about three months before asking me one night after the concert if I would like to go somwhere to get something to eat. Since I never ate before a concert, I was happy to. Unfortunately the place he chose was so noisy we could hardly hear ourselves talk, so he invited me to go a couple of blocks to his apartment so that we could visit. It's funny, but I never thought anything about going to a man's apartment at that time of night. It was already late, but we talked until about two o'clock in the morning and by the end of that night, I decided that I really did like Dick Robbins.

I could go into more detail, (there is quite a bit more to the story) but will just say that seven months later we were married. I met his mother while she was visiting Dick and just can't imagine what she thought about her son getting serious with a woman who had five children and was nine years older that he was. He was only 35 then. I know that if my son was 35 and had never been married, I don't think I would have been too happy about this situation. Sad to say, she died shortly after that visit, and never knew that we actually did get married. In August, we will have been married for 39 years!! That is 14 years longer than I was married to my first husband, the father of all this great kids!

I just have to end this post by letting everyone know that I have the greatest, sweetest, most loving, patient husband in the whole world. Each of my children can attest to this. They all love him so much too. It seems like I just love him more every day. We do enjoy beeing together and our likes and dislikes are so similar that sometimes it seems uncanny. The only thing we are different about is that I love to read books and he has no time for that. I think he has only read about two or three books since we have been married. He tells me that he did read all of Ayn Rand's books and loved them, especially "The Fountainhead, and "Atlas Shrugged." Since I loved those books too, at least we have those in common. I could add a lot more, about how he does all the laundry (and has for years) all my floors and at least 50% of the cooking. How about this guy, don't you envy me?