FIRST DATE

If providence has anything to do with it, you might try to arrange for your first date with someone to be on your mother's birthday.

That way, if that first date gets serious and years later you need to remember the anniversary of your first date - it's your mom's birthday.

How simple is that?

On this date in 1973, I spent the day, a Friday, driving a Maxwell House coffee van around Manhattan - oddly enough, in search of C. W. Post College (General Foods made both Maxwell House coffee and Post cereals) - and had my first accident in a commercial vehicle.

I was driving along lost in the big city when I decided to move from the right center lane to the right curb lane. And when I did, I ignored the horns of the city - the city is full of honking horns - and pulled over and into a livery cab.

So, you could see I really wanted to get home to New Jersey and go out on a date.

We planned to see a Laurel & Hardy movie at the Park Theater on Bloomfield Avenue in Caldwell.

When I arrived at the gal's house I told her mother about the truck accident and it being my mother's birthday.

The gal's mother thought I might be kidding about the accident, or the birthday, or both. She didn't know me very well.

The gal seemed to think I was full of surprises.

Apparently when I'm telling a true story, sometimes people think it's my imagination going on. And when I tell a story-story, they don't know what to think.

So we went on the date and saw the movie. And that led to another date and another and I can still remember our first date.

When I reminded my wife of our anniversary, she asked me how many years.

And when I said 33, I think I surprised her. Yeah, after all these years.

Heck, it's been 23 years since I left General Foods. Talk about surprises. It's a writer's life for me.

Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.