The idea I first came up with resulted in the only time I can recall that Kat gave me a definitive “No” on anything. After about a week of being unemployed I suggested to Kat that we move to California. I had been there for about a month the preceding June/July during my road trip with my cousin Bill. In those days California was considered the land of opportunity. People from all over the United States were flocking to the Golden State and I thought it was a great idea. Kat, apologetically, told me she couldn’t do it. Her reasoning was that both of our families were here, in New York and New Jersey, and she couldn’t leave them. I know she was uncomfortable in saying no to me but she stuck by her guns. Of course she was right. I had no real plans, just a hare-brained scheme. That was the only time I can recall Kat saying “No” to me. In another week or so I got a job with another bank, once again, as a bank auditor.
Occasionally I would invite people I worked with to our apartment. Dennis and Barry were two of those people, both bank auditors with whom I worked. Dennis was Irish and Barry was Jewish. Upon meeting Kat they both had a similar reaction that went something like this: 1. How did Bob end up with a girl like Kathy? Clearly, I had somehow managed to successfully over reach in my love life. 2. Kat was both incredibly nice and beautiful. They were not used to being treated so nicely and friendly, by a beautiful woman. 3. Went they left they both told me they wanted to meet and marry a woman just like Kat and how lucky I was. Of course, they were correct but the wise ass Brooklynite kicked in as I told them “yes, but she was also lucky to marry me.” They both gave me that you have gotten to be kidding look.
By the spring of 1969 my sister, Sheila, had been going out with Steve Golz for several months. Steve was a fellow caseworker at the Department of Social Services when I worked there. I had introduced Steve to Sheila. My cousin, Steve Jacobs, had been dating Alice Pressman for a few months. Alice was a college friend of Steve’s and the daughter of Reba and Dr. Pressman, the Philadelphia family my cousin Bill and I had stayed with during our road trip the previous June when our vehicle needed to be repaired the first time. Also of significance and later a source of family amusement was the time two NYC cops came to our door in May of 1969.
On a beautiful May Day in 1969 I had gotten home from work around 5pm. Soon after I got home two uniformed New York City policemen knocked on my front door. I opened the door and the policemen asked me where my wife was. I told them Kat was expected home in about half an hour and I asked them why they were asking. They didn’t answer my question but they asked to enter my apartment. I allowed them into the apartment. One cop was very brusque in his attitude and the other cop very friendly. Good cop, bad cop, so to speak. While I was talking to the “good” cop the “bad” cop was searching the apartment. He looked in the closets, behind the furniture, and, finally under the bed. I had the distinct feeling he was looking for a body. Of course, no body was to be found. Finally, they left the apartment after apologizing for the intrusion. I never asked them why they came to the apartment and they didn’t volunteer any information. When Kat got home about twenty minutes later I told her what had happened. She thought it was very funny and wasn’t upset by the incident at all. In the next week or so we came up with the following explanation which we both believed for the remainder of Kat’s life. Kat’s aunt Eileen loved Kat deeply. Eileen was a little strange. We thought that Eileen probably awoke from a nightmare where Kat had experienced some harm. When Eileen awoke from the nightmare she possibly did not have all of her faculties. She immediate called the police in our neighborhood to report an event where she thought Kat experienced some bodily harm. The police took the report seriously, thus the visit to our apartment. Kat and I believed this was a reasonable explanation of the event. In spite of this belief I never held it against Eileen. Just as she was a beloved person in Kat’s life she became a beloved, but slightly daft person, in my life. In fact, I gave the graveside eulogy at her passing some 27 years later.