A Roller Coaster Ride to Her Heart
HE FELL, BIG TIME, FOR THAT LITTLE LADY
On the Fourth of July in 1947, my mother, Dorothy, was not looking forward to spending the holiday with her two little brothers at home in Burbank, California. She was 17. She wanted to have fun. Her friend Faye called to say that her boyfriend had a friend, John, from Montana, who had recently completed a tour of duty in Japan. Now training to be an aviation mechanic, John needed a date for the day—would she come along? Mom was shy about going on blind dates but the alternative was worse, so she said yes.
They went on a picnic at Griffith Park, then to the zoo, and wound up at the Santa Monica Pier, where there was a carnival.
At the target-shooting booth, John easily won Dorothy a treasured stuffed animal. As they walked, he reached out and took her hand. Years later, Mom remembered how their hands seemed to fit together—it felt right to her.
They decided to ride the Blue Streak Racer. John had never been on a roller coaster before, but he eagerly boarded one of the cars with Dorothy sitting close by. As the coaster took off with a click-click-click, she glanced at John, anticipating the first drop. But John looked like he was wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
The cars plunged down the first grade and zoomed around curve after curve as the riders screamed and cheered. Back at the depot, Dorothy exited the ride and turned to look at John. Just as he stepped off, he passed out!
My 5-foot-5-inch mother helped my 6-foot-3-inch father as he crumpled to the deck. She held his head in her lap, brushing his hair out of his face. As she watched his eyes flutter open, all she could see was how blue they were, and she knew then that this was the man she was going to marry.
She took him for a walk on the beach to clear his head as holiday fireworks went off in the background.
Faye confessed to my mother the next day that she had tried another friend before she called Dorothy, but got a busy signal twice. Faye never expected Dorothy to agree to a blind date, but she called her anyway.
Dorothy and John married on Sept. 19, 1948, at the Little Church of the Flowers at Forest Lawn, California. My two brothers and I would not have been born and I wouldn’t have been able to share this sweet love story if it weren’t for a busy signal 60 years ago.