Sometime in the middle of January, 1969 Kat and I had our first fight which was immediately followed by a great lesson I learned from her. This was around the time Richard Nixon was inaugurated President for the first time so I suppose I could blame him for the fight.
We were sitting down at our kitchen table after dinner on a Saturday evening. There was a full glass of tomato juice on the table. The apartment was chilly and I was wearing a relatively new sweater that Kat may have gotten me for Christmas. For some reason Kat grabbed the right arm of the sweater I was wearing. She was being very frisky and she was annoying the hell out of me as she wouldn’t let go of the sweater. I tried to twist away from her but she wouldn’t let go of the sweater. Eventually, I knocked over the tomato juice onto the kitchen table in trying to free myself of her grasp. I finally yanked myself away from her, took the sweater off, and mopped up the spilled tomato juice from the table with the sweater. I threw the wet sweater into the trash can in the kitchen. Okay, so I was slightly lacking in maturity. It takes two to tango. Kat immediately went to the hall closet, got her winter coat and left the house without saying a word. I sat in the kitchen for about a half hour, stewing. Then I began to worry. I was worried about her. Where was she? Did she really walk out on me? We were married less than two months. After another half hour I called her parents to ask if they heard from her and I also called her aunt Eileen. Neither one had heard from her. I knew if she was going to go back to her parents or to her aunt Eileen, Kat would catch a bus at Port Authority in Manhattan for the trip to New Jersey. I called Port Authority and asked them if they would page Kathy Jacobs in the large bus station. They told me they could not do that. I pleaded with the man telling him I was a newlywed and my wife had just walked out on me. My pleas got to him and the next thing I heard was a page in the Port Authority bus terminal that sounded something like this, “Kathy Jacobs, if you are in the bus terminal, please call your husband. He is worried sick about you.” I thanked the person but I didn’t receive any telephone calls.
Finally, about 3 hours after Kat walked out she returns home. I was worried sick for most of the three hours. I asked her where she had been. She tells me she had been at the movie theatre three blocks away where she had watched “The Graduate” movie. I am fit to be tied and extremely upset with her for needlessly causing me to worry about her. I don’t say one word to her the rest of the night. I am thoroughly pissed off. We go to bed in our twin bed, lying back to back. She falls asleep almost right away, as she usually does and I lay there stewing until I finally fall asleep. The next morning we both get up and Kat is her usually happy self, acting as if nothing big happened last evening. I expected not to talk to her for several days. I always had a hard time making up with anyone I had a fight with. I did not anticipate anything different. When I saw how Kat had completely minimized the situation, I was amazed. I realized the argument was over and done with and I was very grateful because I did not want to go several days without talking to her. I was so happy that I didn’t even ask her what caused her behavior last night and I didn’t have to explain my behavior. Things were quickly back to normal and I was very happy.