Of course, the incident could have ended another way. There were two of them, there was one of me. I was 5ft 6in. tall, weighed 128 lbs and wore glasses. Both of them were bigger than me. They could have easily beaten the crap out of me and taken my wallet and anything else of value. I was lucky they didn’t do that. I always had a certain amount of brashness that came from growing up in Brooklyn. I had lived in the East New York and Brownsville sections of Brooklyn, two very tough areas, and currently lived in Flatbush. I was always very verbal. I could piss anyone off, and enjoyed doing so. I generally knew when to stop just before getting my ass kicked in. I was tough without really having the physically ability to back it up if the potential opponents were formidable. My father was not brash at all. But he did have the physical ability even though he was only 5ft 3in. tall. When we lived in Brownsville he was about 50 years old when he fought off a mugger armed with a knife. About 3 years after the above incident with me, at the age of 71, my father captured a young man who was stealing a wallet out of a woman’s handbag. My father held the 17 year old down on the ground until the police came while my mother was yelling at him “Al, are you crazy? Let him go.”   I inherited a little of my father’s characteristics and learned to be somewhat brash in Brooklyn. I think those characteristics appealed to Kat. We both recognized characteristics that the other person had that appealed to us.

There was one other incident that happened during this time period that shows it is better to be lucky than smart. Or, maybe a better way to put it is, if you are not smart, you better be lucky. I was paying a home visit on Saratoga Avenue to a welfare client whose name was Queen Holiday. I had gotten her a grant for clothing for her children the previous month. During this visit I asked her if she bought the clothing and could I see a receipt. It was my duty to verify the grant had been spent for the purpose it was intended. Ms. Holiday had no receipt and could not produce any new children’s clothing. We began to argue back and forth, slightly raising our voices with each exchange. It got to the point where we clearly didn’t like each other very much. She was a very large woman. She could have easily sat on me and done severe damage. Additionally, there were three very tough looking male friends visiting her who were sitting in the other room and heard the entire exchange. Once again, I managed to stop just in time and exited the situation on a timely basis. I thought about that incident many times after it occurred and asked myself, “What was I thinking?” Further proof that you need to be lucky if you are not smart.

Sometime in the spring of 1968 Kat moved to a new apartment at 99 Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. Kathy’s old apartment was a 15 minute subway ride from work. It was spacious,  with  4 rooms, and the rent was $66 monthly.  Kathy’s new apartment was a 15 minute subway ride from work.  It was a studio with a kitchenette, about ½ the size of the old apartment.   The rent was $115 monthly.  The old apartment was 3 miles and two subway trains from where I lived, a 45 minute to an hour trip.    The new apartment was about   0.4 miles from me, about a nine minute walk.   I never put two and two together.  It did not occur to me until decades later why Kat moved.  Further evidence that I was never as smart as Kat thought I was.  Living so close to me, now I could see her almost every night.

Soon after Kat moved into the new apartment she bought a used dining set for $35 from an old couple in Borough Park.  She asked me to help her transport the dining set to her apartment.  I borrowed my father’s 1959 Chevy Bel Air and off we went.  For Kat,  picking up that set and installing it in her apartment was an adventure.  She made it an adventure for me.  That little task was the first of many small adventures with Kat that made life so enjoyable and,  ultimately, so special. Her enthusiasm dragged you along and made you a willing participant no matter how trivial the task.  She made the most mundane task fun.

The dining set was  made of good oak wood with 4 cane back chairs and two table extension boards.  We stripped the set down to bare wood and refinished it twice in the 27 years we had it as our dining room set.  That dining set was with us in every apartment and home we lived in in Brooklyn and New Jersey during the 27 years.   We finally sold it to an antique dealer around 1995 for about $100.  We rarely wanted anything.  It just wasn’t our style. We never had more than one set of dishes. Mom Kathleen bought us a brown Pfaltzgraf set when we first got married.  We had that for at least a dozen years.  Throughout our life together we used the same set of dishes for everyday use, special dinners, holidays.  Having more just wasn’t important to us.  We knew we already had what made us happy.  Early on, we knew how we both felt just by looking at each other.  I never got tired of looking at Kathy.  I still don’t.  Love goes a long way, a really long way.

It was a magical time for us.  Our world was perfect.

First photo of Kat and I in the DSS office where we worked.  The events that immediately follow happened just after this picture was taken.

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