How Mary Tyler Moore Became My First Wife
Not really, but she sure looked like her to me
When I was just a young lad of 14, our family drove past a new construction site in Torrey Pines (La Jolla) California.
Eucalyptus trees enveloped what looked to be a small city in the making.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That’s the new university. UCSD. Just about to open,” my dad said.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
And just before passing out of sight, I said, “That’s where I’m going to college.”
In the fall of 1967, I enrolled and began taking classes.
Not that year but the next, I met Mary Tyler Moore.
Not really, but she sure looked like her to me.
Problem was, I already had a girlfriend.
Not a good one, but I was committed, nonetheless.
You know how life works.
Especially in hindsight, there seems to be an element of predestination in what happens to us. Looking back, you wonder how it could possibly have been any different.
At the time, my not-good girlfriend and I just happened to find ourselves frequently studying in the same lounge area of the girls’ dorm as Mary Tyler Moore and her boyfriend.
(I’m going to keep calling her that if you don’t mind, mainly because I want to protect my ex-wife’s privacy and, well … because she looked a lot like the beautiful actress.)
Before long, we three were carpooling together — Mary, the bad girlfriend, and myself.
For a while, I kept denying my pre-determined fate.
How I kept smiling when Mary was around, and angry when it was the other one.
How my parents grimaced when my girlfriend came by; how delighted when I brought Mary home.
How when I bought my brand-new super-duper sports car, I somehow ended up choosing Mary as the first passenger to ride … well before the other.
How nauseous I felt when I saw my bad girlfriend sitting hand-in-hand with some other guy.
How good I felt whenever Mary was around.
How easy it was to break up with my no-good girlfriend.
How wonderful when Mary also broke up with her boyfriend.
How good I felt whenever Mary was around.
How we started doing everything together — like playing Yahtzee deep into the night after first studying together for hours.
How when she transferred to UC at Santa Barbara for her Sociology major, I’d drive some four hours up and back every weekend I could manage.
Until I finally stopped denying destiny and asked her to marry me.
And that is how Mary Tyler Moore became my first wife.
Not really, but she sure looked like her to me.
For 11 years, we did really well.
My second marriage went only 7.
My third, little more than a year.
Ah, destiny.
Not really, but it sure feels like it.
THE END
