Eileen age 19, but “more than a woman.” Ask the Bee Gees. We were married after this photo was taken.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.
A frat pledge, Norman, was supposed to get me a “good date” for an FDU Greek Valentine’s party. He found me Eileen. When her front door opened and there she was, I was speechless.
She was still in high school. I recalled a Woody line from Manhattan when he told his friends that he was dating a girl who still did homework.
When we arrived at the party, quite a few of my friends noticed her, and they came over to meet her. She was nervous; it was her first college party.
But it all worked out. When I got home, my mother was waiting, and I said, “Mom I have news–a win win for both of us, I met a beautiful girl with blue eyes, and she’s Kosher.!”
Eventually I brought Eileen home to meet the folks, and my mischievous younger brother Mel, hiding upstairs, threw down a note for her. It said, ‘”Does your mother know you’re here?”
We both wound up at George Washington University, where I was busy studying medicine and she got to date a West Point cadet. Army was in town for a football game. Those uniforms got those cadets lots of GW dates.
I didn’t see much of her then as she was enjoying college life while I was dating my cadaver. But we did get married after our sophomore years, and we graduated at the same ceremony. Eileen was 19.
After that we moved to New York City where she taught school and I was an intern/ resident at Mt. Sinai. We lived on the Upper East Side in hospital housing. We were “in the city” for 5 years before leaving for Virginia—in the Navy.
Finally we and our two boys returned to New Jersey.
From Saturday Night Fever: The song, appropriately, is “More Than a Woman.”