RON & SUSIE'S FIRST DATE ------------------------ On Thursday, March 6th 2003 Susie and I had just returned from a great dinner at noon with her parents, Coot and Dot Little in Hueytown. I got on the computer and wrote what we talked about. Dot fixed butter peas, beef tips and gravy over rice, boiled cabbage, and biscuits. We went to the living room for desert and her Mom fixed brownies. Susie's sister, Sandy, was there and while we were waiting on the brownies to bake, we got to talking about how Susie's best friend, Steve Hamilton, and her former neighbor across the street, Joyce Cahela (ka-Hee-la) played match maker to get Susie and I together. Steve knew Susie was interested in me but I was oblivious to the fact because of her father. He was known as a tough guy on the road where I grew up and no one was about to mess with any of his 3 daughters. Besides, they were WAY too you. Heck, Susie was the oldest and she was not yet 15. We all knew they'd have to get older before Coot would allow anyone near his door a'courtin'. But that wasn't to be. Steve Hamilton and Joyce Cahela had other plans. Steve and I had been playing guitars together for a few months. Folk music was popular then and we could do a few of The Smothers Brothers tunes. They were a popular comedy team. Everyone also loved Peter, Paul, and Mary who had some of the most popular music on radio at the time. Steve suggested we add a girl to our team so we could do Peter, Paul, and Mary's music. But who to add? Hmmm. I was in high school but Steve was closer to Susie's age and she was still attending school at Pittman Junior High School. It was Steve who also got me involved later with Robert Owen and Rick Jackson when we created a rock band that lasted more than 30 years, but that's another story. Sandy and Steve both recalled years later that it was in the fall of 1963 after Steve entered Hueytown High School when Susie, Steve, and I sang folks songs for Susie's home room teacher. As we sat in Coot's living room, I told Sandy and Dot how Steve, Susie, and I practiced a few folk songs but the kind of relationship she'd hoped for was going nowhere. I was too naive to realize Susie was interested in me. That's where Joyce Cahela got involved. Joyce invited the two of us over for a spaghetti dinner. She sat us across the table from each other then quickly found some urgent business to attend to in the kitchen. I thought it was odd of her leaving Susie and I to enjoy a not-so-romantic dinner for two. The lack of romance was clearly my doing. I was too naive to realize what Joyce was up to and more interested in the spaghetti than the pretty little girl across the table from me. To complicate matters, Susie was never one to talk much. Neither was I. As Sandy, Susie, Dot, and I sat there in Coot's living room, we laughed as we imagined how the conversation went: (Ronnie) "Good spaghetti ain't it?" (Susie) "Mmmm!" I doubt we said much else. I got up to leave and Joyce said, "Aren't you going to walk Susie home?" Susie just lived across the street. "Walk her home? WHY?" I was also thinking how dangerous this was with Coot watching as we crossed Hardy Road. In discussing this with Susie and Sandy, their mom said she she remembered seeing Susie and I holding hands and wondered what was going on. I'm sure Joyce had told me I should hold her hand. I doubt I would have done it instinctively. About that time Joyce yelled out the window, "So when are you going to ask her out AGAIN?" AGAIN!? That's when I finally realized I'd been set up. Thank goodness for Joyce Cahela and Steve Hamilton or this naive young man might have missed the love of his life for the next 36 years. Anyway, it was plain to see I wasn't getting out of this the easy way so I asked her out (hoping all the while her Dad wouldn't find out -- he did anyway). The 5 of us (Coot, Dot, Susie, Sandy, and I) began talking about the details of that first date. None of us could recall when it was. Sandy filled in some details. The reason Sandy remembered it so well was because her parents weren't about to let Susie single date at the tender age of 14 1/2, but they might let her double date. But who to double date with? Steve Hamilton to the rescue again. Steve offered to take 13 year old Sandy and we'd all go to the movies together. I thought everyone had lost their cotton pickin' minds. Sandy told us she had just turned 13 the previous July '63 so the date was probably just before Susie's 15th birthday which was the following February. Thirteen!!! What on earth was Steve thinking? And there was still Coot to deal with. Maybe Coot was working too much overtime then. Maybe Dot arranged it all and didn't tell him until the last minute. No one knows when it happened but somehow we got two of his precious daughters out on a date. Sandy says we went to the Fairfield theater to see John Wayne and Maurine O'Hara in "McClintock" (which wasn't released until November of 1963). I remember that movie so there couldn't have been anything between me and Susie that night except holding hands. I still didn't have a driver's license and neither did Steve. Mrs. Hamilton took us to the movie and my Mom picked us up. I was always late wherever I went so we never got there on time. Susie had to be home by 10 every time we dated. Sandy and Susie both said it was a big joke. All the movies were double features. We'd get to the see the last half of the first movie and the first half of the last one every time we went out. We never saw a whole movie until we married in 1967. That first date was momentous in other ways. Sandy joined our singing troop for a time and the next time we sang at Pittman Jr. High there were four of us. Music had played such a big part in lives we even taught our kids many of the folks songs we sang when we were dating. Remembering it brought back a lot of laughs and memories at Coot and Dot's house that afternoon thinking about how it all got started. -Ron Vincent (2003)-