I first met Dawn in October 1982, by the punch bowl at a monthly singles event organized by the Northern Virginia Jewish Community Center. I was 27 and had relocated to Virginia from California that January to do a post-doctoral fellowship at the US Naval Research Laboratory in DC after getting my Ph.D. in theoretical physical chemistry. Dawn, 24, had moved to Virginia from Ohio that spring for a job after getting a master’s in gerontology.
“Most nights, there was one stray ticket that theaters were happy to sell cheap to a college girl with a debit card and frizzy hair. Not the case at The St. James Theater on West 44th Street, home to The Producers. You couldn’t get this ticket at TKTS and it was years before you could buy resold tickets online. Night after night, The St. James was my first stop to see if there was a ticket for sale. And night after night, the same ticket lady would turn me away. Until now.”
My husband and I joke that it’s lucky we met in the pre-internet Dark Ages. We never would have matched on a dating app.
