The First Time I Saw Eileen

The first time I saw Eileen, I must admit that I was underawed. Here was a woman with an Afro that stuck out about 12 inches on either side of her head. She was wearing a peasant blouse with 2 tassels in rather obvious locations and an old pair of faded jeans. She had on hippie-styled granny glasses and no shoes. She was sitting in a sort of lotus position on the sofa in the house of my shipmate Robbie. It was a blind date; you know, the kind that you say that you will never participate in and yet you somehow end up being a part of.

My day had been quiet – in fact, it was about 9 AM and I was asleep on the ship when I was told that I had a phone call on the quarterdeck. You must remember that this was prior to the invention of cell phones. After getting dressed and stumbling up the ladder to the quarterdeck, I heard Robbie saying that a friend of his wife was staying with them and would I like to come over and have dinner with them. My brain was saying “No thank you – I have something to do tonight” but my mouth was saying “Sure, Robbie, what time?” I immediately tried to correct the situation but Robbie didn’t give me time. “About 5,” he said and hung up.
Great. Just great. Well, I wasn’t about to make any special concessions for someone that I had never met, so I went in my very best (well, at least it was clean) plaid flannel shirt and jeans. Did I mention that I had on my Navy-issued glasses? The ones everyone called “birth control” glasses? And I arrived in my white Ford F-150 pickup truck. Definitely a man of distinction and impeccable taste. But back to Eileen.

We obviously had nothing in common other than we were both breathing and alive. I’m sure she was contemplating a sit-in or something as a protest against the military-industrial complex that she thought I represented and I was anxiously hoping that the cops would show up and save me from someone who was undoubtedly an anarchist. No such luck. We ended up sitting across from each other at dinner and I had to admit that she was good-looking although I probably wouldn’t want to introduce her to my folks.

The evening kind of dragged by and I was glad that soon it was about over and I could escape. I had managed to survive without creating any problems or making a total fool of myself. As I was getting up to leave, I was going to say “Thanks, I had a nice time” and head for the door but it didn’t work out quite that way. Instead, I said “Hey, would you like to go to a movie tomorrow?” And the rest, as they say, is history.