Married almost 60 years, Bernice and Ben Finn remember their first meeting while on a blind date with friends in 1946, and share their first impressions of each other.
Originally aired October 10, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Married almost 60 years, Bernice and Ben Finn remember their first meeting while on a blind date with friends in 1946, and share their first impressions of each other.
Originally aired October 10, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Ben Finn (BenF) and Bernice Finn (BerniceF)
BenF: My two best friends were Hank and Eddie. Hank had a girlfriend. Eddie had a girlfriend. I had no girlfriend. So. Eddie approached me one day and said, ’Would you like to join us with a blind date?’ So I said, ’Sure, why not.’ In those days you wore a suit and a tie when you went on a date.
BerniceF: Right.
BenF: I didn’t have a suit to my name. So, I bought a suit to match the tie that I had.
BerniceF: Did it have apples on it?
BenF: It had apples on it, yes.
BerniceF: I remember that.
BenF: I was very nervous. And, uh, she was so pretty.
BerniceF: I remember that day very well. And, no, you weren’t pretty. I remember Jeannette and I going into the ladies’ room and she says, ’Well, what do you think?’ ”He’s nice.’ You know, what am I, I didn’t know.
BenF: We walked out into the cold night air.
BerniceF: And, I took your arm.
BenF: I was thrilled by that, you know. Mmm, she must like me, she took my arm.
BerniceF: And the reason I took your arm is you seemed nervous. And I wanted to make you more comfortable. We were all hungry. And we went to a coffee shop. And everybody’s ordering hamburgers and drinks. The orders are going around and, and it’s Ben’s turn and he doesn’t order anything. And I say to myself, ’Oh my God, I bet he doesn’t have any money.’ So there I am starving, and I ordered black coffee, because I was afraid my date didn’t have any money. So, you owe me a hamburger. What was the reason you didn’t order anything?
BenF: I have no memory of that. Maybe it was I didn’t have enough money, maybe I was just cheap. I don’t know.
BerniceF: Ok, I’ll buy that second…
BenF: Ok
BerniceF:…explanation. It’s been quite a ride, and..
BenF: Going on sixty years, is it. That first night I fell in love with her and I’ve been in love with her ever since.
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