Crème de Menthe Parfait

When I first matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, I lived on the fifth floor of the Class of 1928 dormitory in the upper quad off 37th and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia.  There were 33 freshmen males living on the floor divided equally among 11 rooms.  Initially, I had roommates from Boston and Orlando.  In the middle of the year, there was a grand exchange on the entire floor and I got two new roommates, Mike Parr from Baltimore and Ralph Pincus from Pittsburgh.

However, the only one from that fifth floor group I am still friends with is Scott Kahn from Springfield, Massachusetts.  On a weekend night back in '63, there was a mixer on our floor at the dorm and Scott invited his friend from Springfield, Naomi Bloom, who was also a freshman at Penn.  She brought her roommate at Sergeant Hall (women's dorm), Joan Ruth Freedman from Brooklyn, New York, an only child whose father was a neurosurgeon (shades of Ben Casey).

It turns out Joan and I probably met before.  In the summer of 1958 or 1959, while I was at Eagle Cove, she was at a girls camp also in the Adirondacks called Greylock.  There was a mixer at Greylock in which boys from Eagle Cove were invited.

Joan and I dated on and off while we were at Penn.  In November of 1964, fifty-three years ago, I called her for a date.  Joan declined my invitation as she was going home that weekend.  I then hatched a plan.  Saturday morning, I took a train to New York and then a subway to Columbia University's Baker Field to watch the Penn-Columbia football game.  Penn lost 33-12.

After the game, I called Joan at her home.  At first, I pretended to be someone from Penn reporting she had broken a rule when she left her dorm.  Hearing worry in her voice, I told Joan it was me and what I said was a joke.  I mentioned I was in New York and had been at the football game (I should have invited her to go with me).  Much to my surprise, she invited me to join her and her parents for a pre-show dinner at Barbetta's restaurant on West 46th Street, near Broadway.  I accepted.  

Joan said she was sorry I hadn't told her I would be in New York as her family had an extra ticket that night for the musical Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theatre.  The extra ticket instead went to a friend of her father's.  I almost got to see the 22 year-old superstar, Barbra Streisand, perform live on stage.  However, I did have a wonderful dinner with Joan and her parents at a fancy restaurant and afterwards went to Madison Square Garden to see the great Oscar Robertson (the Big O) play basketball in person for the only time in my life.  I've never seen Barbra perform live.

After graduating from Penn, Joan earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.  In 1992, around the time of our twenty-fifth Penn class reunion, I had lunch with her at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where she was a professor of psychology.  Joan reminded me of a story she used to tell her family.  On one of our dates at a restaurant on Chestnut Street, I ordered a crème de menthe parfait.  In response, the waiter asked to see my ID.  As I was under 21, I ordered something else.  Until Joan mentioned it, I had forgotten all about that dessert.