Suzi and I met 60 years ago on January 20.  We could not celebrate on January 20^th because that day did not exist on Zaandam.  It was the day we crossed over from American Samoa, east of the dateline to Samoa west of the dateline.  So, we’ll celebrate today, the 60^th anniversary of our first date.

We met when Suzi’s dad, Bill Randall, was running for Governor of Minnesota.  He was speaking at St. Olaf College in Northfield, where I went to college.  Carleton College was across the Canon River where Mr. Randall went to college.  Suzi, a Carleton student, came up to have dinner with her dad.

After the speech, while Bill Randall was talking to students, Suzi was standing in the back of the room.  My friend John, who was quite a dating man, went up to Suzi and I followed.  By the time Suzi got back to Carleton she had a call from John asking her for a date.  They went out the very next night to a basketball game.

Another friend, Ed, was mad at John for some reason and goaded me to call Suzi to ask her out, hoping that I could push John out of the picture.  I never thought I could be competition for John, who was tall, handsome, and blonde, but Ed pushed and pushed, and I called to ask Suzi to go to a Carleton Folk Festival Concert on Saturday Night.  Ed later was best man at our wedding. I just gave away the story. 

We went to the concert.  It opened with Pat Sky, who gave a great performance.  The closer was Koerner, Ray and Glover. The trio was a mainstay of the Minnesota folk scene.  Spider John Koerner and Tony Glover mentored Bob Dylan, Spider John working with him on guitar and vocals and Tony on the harmonica.  Dylan credits them in his book “Chronicles.”  I was looking forward to seeing them again and the anticipation somewhat helped me overcome my fear of dating a new girl.  If the date went badly at least, I would hear some good music.

That’s not the way it worked out.  In a review of the concert in the January 27^th Carltonian, J. Beil wrote.

“It became immediately obvious that Spider had been 100% successful in quelling any and all pre performance jitters and that his display of talent was at least colorful if not accomplished.”

He went on to say of Spider John: “Later he was the hapless victim of gravity during a lull in the performance when he and his chair fell over backwards.”  He not only fell over backwards, he fell off the stage.  The review ended with: “If nothing else it was worth seeing Koerner, Ray and Glover in a chapel” (the concert venue.)

In another review by Dave McGinty ad Bill Goodrich in the same edition, called the concert “A Qualified Success,” and went on to say: “Koerner Ray and Glover, always a sight for sore eyes, came on stage with all the commotion of a jailbreak.  Their quasi uncouth antics were not for the timid.  It took them a while to get warmed up and their concert was ending just when they were reaching this point.”

Suzi and I did not reach that point.  After Spider John fell off the chair and stage, we looked at each other, trying to suppress the giggles and at the intermission left.  We went to the Carleton Tea Room for an after concert coffee.  For some reason (fate?) a small combo was playing there.  We have never seen them before nor since.  The music was from the Great American Songbook.  We danced; I would not have had the courage to hold Suzi in my arms otherwise.  We found we both had love for musical theater and Suzi told me she was working props for a production of “110 in the Shade.”  I offered to help.    I don’t think I had the nerve to kiss her good night but six weeks later we were engaged — at the age of 19.

Spider John, Dave Ray and Tony Glover were often guests on a folk music radio show on WCAL that Suzi and I produced starting in 1968 and they came to Grand Rapids, up on Minnesota’s Iron Range, 18 miles from Dylan’s home in Hibbing, to play at KAXE, a station we started in the 1970s on our “Jackpine Jamboree.”  I thanked Spider John for falling off that chair and off that stage.