Arranging a date.

by Rod Fruendt
(Wappingers Falls, NY)

This picture reminds me so much of 1964 when I was a member of the US Navy and home for Christmas leave from my destroyer which was out of Newport, RI. I had met a very attractive girl on the LIRR train from East Northport, Long Island where my parents lived.

The girl lived in Manhattan and, as we spoke together on the train, she invited me to her apartment on New Year's Eve. I was only 21 at the time, and was looking forward to spending some time with a beautiful, red-haired, "older woman" of 27.

The following week, as planned, I met her and a few of her female friends to usher in the new year, which we did. Her friends went home, and she asked me to stay . . . which I did without coaxing. It was a blissful two days. She worked in a recording studio and sent me recordings of a new singer named Lou Rawls.

However, the Navy and Soviet submarines soon occupied my mind and we lost touch.

The couple in the painting reminds me of us, as she was short and I was 6' 3", but it being winter I was wearing my blue "crackerjack" uniform. The print hangs on my bedroom wall.

Rod Fruendt
USN Stg3
Veteran.