40 Years Ago Today – Nerd Meets Girl, Makes New York Times

Today is a big day for my wife and I; it was 40 years ago today that we met at a college party. I’ve written about that special night before, so I won’t repeat it here.

But as I was reminiscing about that day, I decided to go back and check the news to see what else was going on in the world that day. I opted to search the New York Times, since that is the paper of record.

The first thing I checked was to see what the weather was like that day:

That’s basically what I remember; a typical early Spring day.

I then checked to see what was going on in the world of sports; looks like the Mets were in town that night. Glad I didn’t go to the game, my life would have been completely different, and no way would it have been as good as the one I’ve had.

I also saw that Villanova made the headlines that day:

And in an amazing coincidence, but perhaps not a great surprise, the Villanova men won last night’s Distance Medley Relay in this year’s Penn Relays!

I then decided to take a quick look at the World News Briefs. The first item that caught my eye was a story about South Korea sinking a North Korean boat and I realized the reports this week were correct; that fight has been going on a long time. Let’s hope it ends soon.

But it was the story right below that one that really caught me by surprise:

I am not sure how I was never aware of this, but I am certainly glad I was not aware of the story 40 years ago. As if it wasn’t bad enough being known as a nerd on campus, did the whole world have to know? Fortunately, it appears as if nobody from my alma mater read the New York Times that day either (it was a Saturday after all; what college student reads a newspaper on a Saturday, or any day for that matter).

Despite being in shock, I decided to go through the rest of the paper and see what else may have been going on that day. Next up, the financial pages:

Can you imagine that, a 10-point increase in the Dow being referred to as a surge! Today the Dow is over 24,000 points.

A story about John Travolta caught my eye; it tells of students getting up an hour earlier than usual for high school so that they can get their hair just right. As much as I loved Saturday Night Fever, I’m glad I never got caught up in that sort of nonsense. I guess I realized it would have been a losing cause anyway.

I then read a story that made me realize the difference between Harvard students and East Stroudsburg students (well at least this East Stroudsburg student):

So while I was busy resting up for the big off-campus party that night, Harvard students were protesting Harvard’s investment practices. I don’t even think I knew what “divest” meant back then. But in my defense, I wonder how many of those Harvard students met their future wife at that protest…

Finally, there was also an incredibly inaccurate and misleading letter to the editor from the Director of Media Relations for the Tobacco Institute, but I’ll save that one for another day.

One shock to the system is enough for the day.

Now I’ll have to check if the story about me walking into a glass door made the Times as well…