another long story

Claudia and Laura, 2019

Wesley, @1969

 It began in college, at Vassar. Laura was my best friend, and Bill was my boyfriend, becoming one of the first males to graduate from the formerly all-female college. As a campus tour guide for prospective students, I took Wesley around. And after a semester abroad in Taiwan, I took up with him, while Bill did alternative service as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war. Bill took up with Cheryl, who later became a friend of mine at People and Life.
   Meanwhile, after graduation, Laura and I worked in New Hampshire and then went to Hawaii together. A year or so later, back home in Illinois, she took up with Bill. Back in NYC and working at People, I took up with Alan and moved into the apartment where he lived with Douglas.

Bill and Laura, August 21, 1976

Bill and Laura got married 43 years ago yesterday. Alan and I went to their wedding, and immediately thereafter broke up, probably due to comparing their happiness with ours!

Laura at her wedding with best friends from grade school, college and high school.

Meanwhile, Wesley took up with Marla, and I moved back to New York and took up with a friend of Cheryl's and then Douglas, Alan's former roommate. Are you following me?  In the words of Cheryl's friend and mine, "One thing you can say about our friends, they don't sleep with strangers."

    This all came up when a documentary film crew came asking me questions about the coeducation of Vassar College, 50 years ago this spring. That same week Bill and Laura visited New York (and the apartment I moved into when I took up with Douglas).

    Wes and Marla have lived happily ever after, as have Laura and Bill.

    Me? It seems I'm not the marrying kind.

Wesley and Marla, 2018

Bill and Laura, 2019