A C.M. Classic: Post #403

For today's blast from the past, we feature Cedar's Mountain post #403 for your enjoyment. For those of you who are new to Father Nature's Corner, today's post is part of a continuing series (that started on Cedar's Mountain) in which I dig up an old post from Cedar's Mountain (1069 to be exact) and try to put a brand new twist on it.

Prior to dating my wife, I was very much a newbie to the dating game. How new you may ask? Well....I had a date that severely backfired in the very early 80's, and I dated this extremely weird girl that was six years younger than me, but I couldn't take her anywhere 'cause her mother was a vice cop for the city of Hartford. So you can basically count on one hand how many dates I had prior to dating my wife.

Looking back on the two+ years that I spent dating my wife, the one common thread that I found was that a lot of the places we went to for date nights no longer exist.

For instance, on our first date we decided to do dinner and a movie. To get there, we had to cross the river and pay a toll (no longer there). We had dinner at a Denny's in East Hartford (no longer there, is now a bank) and saw a movie at a Showcase Cinema Multiplex (no longer there as the moment General Cinemas built a new theater in Manchester started sending the box office bombs to the one in East Hartford, thus driving it to the ground).

And even the companies that my wife and I worked for while we were dating no longer exist. For example, I used to work for an oil company that had gas stations. The company was initially called Automatic Comfort. Eventually, the owner sold the home heating oil division and kept the gas stations. Eventually changed the name to Convenient Marketeers then Convenient Petroleum. Eventually sold the company to Fas Mart, which was based in Rhode Island (only company I've ever worked for that celebrated VJ Day), who in turn sold a good chunk of the stations to Valero.

She, at various times, worked for The Card Gallery (no long exists per se), Bradlees (no long exists) and Food Mart/Waldbaums (knocking on the gate to businesses be gone).

Even the church that we eventually got married in went belly up. With a dwindling congregation, Trinity United Methodist Church voted to disband. They gave most of the properties to other local churches and sold the main church to the city of New Britain, which turned into this local arts and entertainment place.

But, as I've mentioned in that particular post, it's been a fantastic ride as this year we are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.

Life has definitely been good to me.

(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.