The Love of My Life

While visiting with Jake during a rare moment of calmness at the SAG Awards Show, he asked about how his mom and I had met. When I told him the story, he suggested it was sufficiently interesting so as to qualify as a blog entry.

Thirty-one years ago I was already a young police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and was living a somewhat carefree life. The Oakwood Gardens Apartment complex at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and First Street in Seal Beach was my home. My roommate was Mark Fuhrman who later became infamous, erroneously, for his actions in the O.J. Simpson case.

Anyway, Mark and I were living a life style that was not totally consistent with LDS standards and I was growing increasingly unsatisfied with that life style. I decided to get away from the "Beach" scene and move back to the Alhambra area where I felt it would be easier to ease back into church oriented activities. So I rented a little house on a long driveway in Temple City where there were several other little houses, mostly occupied by other LDS people and small families.

On the weekend in March 1977, when I was moving, I was invited by Jack and Gail Reidy to go on a double date. Jack was one of my first Training Officers at 77th Street and a great gentleman and friend. His wife was also a wonderful friend and I trusted them when they said they new a cute and personable young woman who had married young after choosing poorly, was separated (getting a divorce), and had two little boys. You might wonder why me, a bachelor, would even consider a ready-made family. Well, I was already thirty-one years old and had about decided that I had little in common with most single women in their early twenties. Single women that were my age generally had "issues" that were impossible to deal with. These are generalities, of course, but often true. Most of the single women who were pretty squared away had tried marriage and found their first husbands to be more or less unsatisfactory. Anyway, I had met several such women and found them to be much more suitable but had not found one yet that I believed would make a good wife.

So the double (actually quadruple) date was set up. The guys would be sailing out of Newport Harbor during the day and the women would meet us for dinner. We did that and I had a great time. That's where I met Cathy for the first time. We seemed to hit it off well but she lived in Huntington Beach and I was moving that weekend to Temple City. It didn't matter. We dated a lot. I burned a ton of gasoline driving back and forth, we were in love.

Next problem: Cathy was not a mamber of the Church and, as I wrote earlier, I was trying to live a more Gospel-oriented life.

On Mothers' Day, 1977, she went to church with me at my Ward in Temple City. A member of the Stake Presidency spoke on motherhood and the woman's role in the Church. It was a great talk and Cathy wanted to know more. She joined the Church because she loved the teachings (and a little bit because she loves me) and we soon became engaged to be married. Michael was eight years old and Kevin was five when Cathy and I got married on September 10, 1977, a little over thirty years ago.

So there it is, Jake. Thanks for a good idea.