The Day I Met Him October 1973

As an airline employee, flying on standby is a maybe yes, maybe no constant factor. It becomes part of our life style.
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When he saw me coming on board Western Airlines, he had no idea who I was. Dressed in jeans torn and patched way before that was the "in" style, he glanced up at me walking down the airplane aisle. With long brown hair, an old T-shirt completed my wardrobe. If he thought I was a hippie, I wasn't. Heck, I graduated from Ole Miss in '69. Archie Manning was our man, and beer bust parties were the school politics of the day. He may have thought I was a hippie. All I needed was a flower necklace around my head, but I can assure you underneath those grubs was a Tennessee Southern Belle.
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There was one available seat on Western Airlines that day. It was a short flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but this seat saved my waiting a couple of extra hours for the next flight. Not that would have made a great difference to me, being a TWA flight attendant I took the perks with the disadvantages.
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I smiled at him when I asked if the seat beside him was free. There he was dressed in a suit, black framed glasses...very formal looking. He wasn't my type. The flight was less than an hour. I could engage in pleasant conversation for that length of time. In the seventy's, even on short flights, champagne was being served, and the minutes passed by quickly. As the airplane began to descend, out of the blue he said to me, "I know where there is the best Italian restaurant in San Francisco." The one and only line that rang my bell, he had nailed it.
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He gave me his business card, telling me he would call later. I gave him my telephone number. As I did, I said I hope I have enough gas to get home. I wasn't sure I did. He'll remember that statement later. He soon lost me at the airport, as I had vanished into the bowels of the airport where employees go.
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In an apartment on California St., in San Francisco, I was telling my roommate this guy might call to take me out to dinner sometime. The phone begins to ring; I knew it was he..I just knew it and so soon too. My roommate, Christa, lifts up an eyebrow. "Are you going to answer?"
"Not today!"
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That was the day Swiss man met Southern Belle camouflaged as a hippie. Five years later, my email address would read "MrsSwiss". Who would have "thunk" it? :-)