Window Shopping
August 28th would have been my parents’ 76th wedding anniversary had they both lived beyond their 90+ years of age and 68 years as a married couple. My parents, Joe and Jean, met in Chicago a short time after World War II. Men were returning from the war and the women who remained behind were waiting for them.
I wrote the following story years ago based on my parents’ recollection of how they met. I hope you enjoy it.
Window Shopping
They worked across the street from each other – same floors, separate office buildings, and total strangers to one another.
Joe had his eye on the pretty brunette for several weeks and wondered who she was. Her curly, chin-length hair bounced when she walked and she appeared to always use her hands when she talked. How can he get to know her, he wondered. Stand outside her building and wait for her to exit at the end of the day? He couldn’t call her on the phone – he didn’t know her name or even the name of the company she worked at. There must be dozens of companies and hundreds of people that worked in her building, he thought. Joe was determined to find a way.
Jean’s fingers flew across the keys of her typewriter as she looked out the window across from her desk. There was that man again, she thought. Staring. She wondered who he was. She liked the way his dark hair fell over one eye making him even more mysterious. Just like Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind she thought. Jean peered out from behind her long bangs. She was too embarrassed to have him see her looking his way.
Several hours passed and a plan formulated in Joe’s head. Joe grabbed a large cardboard box from the mail room and tore off one side. He quickly wrote a few words with a black marker and placed it flush against the window with the words facing out. He sat back down, waited, and hoped.
Jean returned to her desk from her lunch break and proceeded to finish typing the report she had been working on. She stole a glance out the window, hoping to see that man from across the way. She saw him, but she also saw a huge sign in the window. What was that, she asked herself. She read the words out loud:
“Hi, will you go out with me tonight? My name is Joe, what is yours?”
Jean felt the blush rise in her cheeks and quickly looked down. She looked up again, grabbed a marker from her desk, a sheet of paper from her legal pad, and scribbled a few words.
“I’m Jean. Yes, I will go out with you tonight. I’ll meet you on the corner at 5 pm.”
They were married a short time later.
What a gorgeously fun story! I love that this is how your parents met! Such a fun read, thank you ❤️