From Our Readers: What's Love Got to Do with It?

What’s love got to do with it? Everything! In our summer issue, we explored the importance of romance among college students and asked you to share your stories. The many responses we received make it clear that college is about lots more than classes.

ROMANCE JUMP-START

The "Frosh Mixer" was held on a warm September evening on the home ec patio. Aromas from a nearby cow barn blew in on the Delta breeze. The most interesting man asked me to dance and then offered me a ride back to the dorm, and when the car didn't start, I ended up pushing his car.

From that point, things rapidly improved! Forty-something years later we are still best friends, and occasionally his car still needs a push.

Bernice Brown Honeychurch'62

AT FIRST SIGHT

Roberta June Doyne came to campus in 1962 as a teaching assistant in the Department of English, a 22-year-old with yellow hair and a green heart, green with dreams and sweetness (both of which she has passed along to our daughter, Marlowe). Roberta had come to begin the difficult path to a Ph.D., her interest in the 17th century and the metaphysical poets. I had come to complete my Ph.D. in the impressionist novel, my dissertation (and Ph.D. in 1964) the first to be completed in the new humanities program.

She looked like one of the Rockettes with legs seemingly 7 feet long, and if on the one hand neither of us believed in that romantic myth of "love at first sight," that disbelief was challenged when we fell instantly and irrevocably in love at the first departmental meeting.

What happened was an elopement to Las Vegas during the UC Davis midyear break. We drove from UC Davis to Las Vegas in an MGA, its top down and our happiness up.

Our first wedding gift was from the landlord of our apartment on Seventh Street—a miniature Schnauzer, "Nevada." Dogs were welcome on campus those green days, even Nevada who barked at anybody who existed without her consent. Roberta taught her freshman class at 8 in the morning; I taught my first class an hour later. I'd ride my red bicycle to campus with Nevada running tirelessly, gracefully beside me, and then Nevada would run back home with Roberta.

We've now been married for 38 years, and our memory of UC Davis is not unlike Nevada's gait: tireless, energetic, full of a life rooted in that green campus.

Len Weingart, Ph.D. '64

FROM A LIE TO LOVE

As a transfer student from UC San Diego, I spent my sophomore year at Davis living out the "freshman experience" I felt I had been robbed of the previous year. I lived with four other girls in a dorm at Castilian (recognized at the time to be the "best" dorm because of its proximity to the neighboring fraternities and shopping center). We even had a pool just footsteps away from our front door. It was there that I first saw him.

A year passed and still we had not spoken; only exchanged a few flirtatious glances. Eventually, I saw him at a party, and he asked me for my number, which I gave him. When he called a few days later, I had my roommate lie for me. She told him I was out of town with family, and that the dinner he was supposed to take me to on Saturday would have to be postponed. I did not have the courage to tell him that I was seeing someone else, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never get to know him. That Saturday night I went to a party with some friends, and wouldn't you know it, he was there. And yes, he saw me. I was busted. After making some quick excuses to my company, I left the party and went home, both ashamed at being caught in a lie and disappointed at what he probably thought of me.

Every time I ran into him the following year I gushed with embarrassment. I could not believe how childish I had acted. I found myself increasingly attracted to him and wanted to make amends. Now that I no longer had a boyfriend, I decided to make a bold move and ask him to my friend's cocktail party. I made sure I called him when I knew he wouldn't be home. That way I figured if he called me back, I was forgiven.

That evening the phone rang. It was him. Our conversation quickly moved from small talk to more involved conversation, to an eventual "Yes, I'd be happy to go to the party with you —so long as you don't have any more family commitments," he joked.

So Nov. 20, 1992, was our first official date. He picked me up at 7 o'clock and by 9:15 I was hooked.

We were married in a vineyard on a balmy July evening in 1997. We have two children now: a 2-year-old son, and a 4-week-old daughter. We are still intoxicatingly happy, and yes, we named our son Davis.

Alexa Whitten-Eisenman '93

HIGHWAY TO LOVE

Gilmore Hall elevator, one fall afternoon. We were freshmen. "I heard you were from Hollister," he said. "Yeah, so?!" I replied with hardly a glance in his direction. "Well, I live in Morgan Hill; you can give me a ride home!" Was this guy for real? He was. I gave him a ride home. We hung out together more and more. Our first dates, dinner at the dining commons, eating the "beef surprise." Our friendship turned into something more serious every day. He took me on a mountain bike adventure through Putah Creek. I came back head to toe in mud—he was impressed, I was intrigued. Temescal, Drake Drive, Cowell Boulevard, graduation—our friendship developed into love.

Allen and I have been married for five years and have two beautiful children. We once considered naming one of them "Davis."

Jennifer Andrade'95

BURNING LOVE

A: I noticed him across the room during the first day of drama class.

J: I liked her smile.

A: I thought about him often and referred to him as "the guy in my drama class I'm obsessed with."

J: As shy as I was, I knew I had to ask her out.

A: Fortunately, on the first day we were supposed to work with our assigned partners, both of ours were absent, and we were conveniently standing next to each other when the instructor reassigned us for the day.

J: Talking with Amy was an exhilarating new adventure.

A: We began talking every day in class and tried to time our exits at the end of each hour so we would walk out the door at precisely the same moment.

J: Every time I got the courage to ask her out, she would be absent.

A: One day as we lingered together after class, he asked if I'd like to get coffee or a smoothie or something. I said a smoothie sounded great. We were together from that date forward, and even survived a long distance relationship after I graduated while he had one more year at Davis.

J: While writing her a letter, I suddenly realized that I wanted to spend every day of the rest of my life with her. I phoned her and asked if she'd come up the next day.

A: I was concerned that it would cost him a lot of money, but he insisted that he really needed to see me. He took me for a walk in the arboretum. Before I knew what was happening, we were standing in front of the Old Firehouse, the exact location where we had first encountered each other in drama class. I was totally shocked when he dropped to one knee.

J: I asked her to marry me, and she nodded her head "yes." It was about five minutes before we spoke again. "Do you realize that we're engaged?" I asked. She knew.

A: Nine months later we were married, and this September we'll celebrate our second anniversary. Now we're getting ready to participate in the wedding of Jeremy's brother, Noel. He's marrying Sarah, a girl he ran cross country with at Davis.

Jeremy '98 and Amy (Lefkowitz) '97 Mattern

ALL IN THE FAMILY

I met my husband in class my senior year. My sister met her husband at Davis in the dorms her freshman year. My stepbrother married his wife after dating at Davis and they even named their son (his middle name) Davis! And my stepdad went to Davis, although he didn't meet my mom there. So I guess you could say that love definitely played a part of my family's college experience!

Jennifer Aist '92

JUST "FRIENDS"

I had broken up with my first true love right before leaving home for my freshman year. I did go looking for love again in Davis but did not succeed after several relationships. After I got my heart broken again, I decided that I was going to enjoy life on my own. I had a lot of fun and had lots of friends from home come to visit for weekends. One of these groups of friends included a guy who had just broken up with his girlfriend. We became good friends. It was great to have a guy who was just a friend, and I confided in him about a lot of things.

When I went home for the summer, he asked if I would go out with him. He admitted the whole evening that he was very nervous and kept doing silly things. The date didn't go well, and a friend who double-dated with us said she thought we would never go out again. Well, after the date, I found out that he had been in love with me for months and didn't want to scare me away! Sadly, he wasn't my type and I told him I wanted to stay just friends. He backed off and left me alone.

I really missed him, his sense of humor and fun. When I saw him again, I began to fall in love and fell fast. For my next three years at Davis, we had a long-distance relationship from Davis to San Mateo and saw each other almost every weekend. Two years later we married, and my friend who thought we would never date again was my maid of honor. It is now 13 years and three children later.

Linda (Struck) Schulz '87

HOUSEMATES

Senior year, winter quarter 1987. I was living in a rental house in northeast Davis with four other women. One of my housemates had PELPed out for winter quarter in order to be a ski bunny and had sublet her room to a new housemate—a boy. It was almost a week into the first quarter, and I still hadn't met the new guy, although the other girls were telling me how cute he was. As was usual for Friday night, I went to Happy Hour at the Grad. When I got home, I found I was the first one home. Soon after, however, the new housemate, Danny, showed up. We met for the first time just outside the bathroom. We ended up chatting for an hour, right there in the darkened hallway. We exchanged all the pertinent information: He was a fermentation science major; I was an animal science major. He had only a quarter left and would be looking for a job to go to when the quarter was over. I was deciding whether to go to vet school, as I always thought I would, or go to grad school for a Ph.D. in animal science. We found that both of us liked to mountain bike. We ended up taking many bike rides that quarter, even taking in a few movies. But nothing happened more than that. Finally, at the end of the quarter I suggested we go on a road trip. We spent spring break driving to the Grand Canyon and back, camping along the way and writing our own love story. However, by the end of the quarter, I had decided to take the adventure of moving across the country to New York for graduate school at Cornell University. Danny chose to take a permanent position at Anheuser-Busch in Los Angeles and moved there after our trip.

We tearfully said good-bye, with no promises, no ties. However, during the next eight years we did stay together, and our relationship was played out over a number of great vacations. Finally, when I graduated, I left Ithaca to join Danny in St. Louis, where he had moved two years previously to work in A-B corporate offices. After another year there, during which I was postdoc at Washington University, Danny was offered a promotion in the Los Angeles brewery. Now after almost five years here, my postdoc at UCLA transitioned to a faculty position in the medical school, and Danny is assistant brewmaster at A-B. As I write this, Danny and I are taking turns rocking our sleepy 2-month-old baby, Maya, while our 2 1/2-year-old, Jenna, naps in the other room. Between the girls, two dogs, and a cat, Danny is again living in a house full of females.

Diane Harris and Dan Kahn '87