Shelly Sitzer--How I Met Sidney

Being 14 and a newcomer in an East Flatbush/Brownsville, Brooklyn neighborhood, I had finally made a couple of friends after a very hard time being accepted in this last year of junior high school. Miraculously, I had finally made a friend named Sarah and was so happy to be able to visit her after school.

After visiting with her a few times, she asked me if I would like to meet her friend Sidney who lived in the next apartment building. “Sure,” I said, not thinking a whole lot about it. Well, sure enough on one of my visits she looked out of her kitchen window and said, “He’s there.” “Who?” I asked. “Sidney”, she said, “let’s go.”

So we left her apt and waiting outside her window where Sidney was standing outside of his apt building. Then he came over! “Wow! What a macho guy,” I thought to myself. His dark wavy hair came down the center of his forehead much like the Fonze on the TV show Happy Days. But this was actually before that time. I swooned and tried not to show it as Sidney and I made casual conversation about his exploits the day before in the school yard where according to Sidney “the guys tossed around a girl they knew like a football.”

“What!” I said in my naïve fashion. “What do you mean; you picked her up and tossed her around!” I don’t remember whether I was just startled or totally impressed. “Like this,” he said as he lifted me up. “We’re going home,” were his next words. I asked my friend if it would be alright with her, as I kind of suspected that she too could have a crush on him. “It’s okay,” she answered.

My home was a few blocks away and he truly did carry me like I was a feather weight! We sat on the bench outside my house. I recall that my mother saw him from a distance as she was returning home and told me later that she thought that I was talking to a teacher. He looked so much more mature than I did. In fact when he told me that he was seventeen and asked my age something told me not to say 14 ½. So I said, “fifteen.” The next day he returned to my friend to tell her that he would like to call me so that he could “drag me to the beach.” Yes, those were the words she told me and she gave him my number.

Sidney and I were married in 1965. I can only add to this that after being married to my “macho guy” for over 50 years and three children later, I have to say that he has been the best husband that any gal could have.

I hail from Brooklyn, NY where I met Sidney, my future husband in 1958 when we were both in our teens. It was attraction at first sight on my behalf, and the love that bloomed from it lasted over 50 years throughout our marriage, still continuing on now after his passing. Aside from being a writer of short stories and poetry, I am the mother of our three grown children.

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