How My Parents Met

So my mother always had a curiosity about anything exotic. When we went on a vacation to Egypt, she boldly looked over at a man dressed in a white gown and a turban and asked him, "Sir, how do you keep your whites so bright?"

It was kind of a bad Tide commercial, but my brother, sister and I giggled uncontrollably, as we were used to her never-ending curiosity about other cultures. So the story of how my parents met is really no surprise at all. My mother was living in Turkey under fairly mysterious circumstances. She told us that she was living well, even had a tailor making her fine clothing. Mom had spent six months there and she was longing for her life back in the U.S. She hadn't had her passport for some time, but someone was able to get back to her, and she jumped at the opportunity to "escape". She rushed to the airport where she got on the first flight to Athens, Greece. She then boarded a flight to JFK.
 
Mom was very beautiful. She was 5' 8", blond and blue-eyed. In her twenties, she was always made-up and she wore big, blond wigs. As soon as she boarded the plane, a very handsome Israeli man turned around and started to chat with her.
 
Anyone who had met my father knows that his personality was often compared to that of "Zorba the Greek": loud, playful and large. Dad had Middle Eastern-looks. He was flirtatious and charismatic.    I can only imagine the charm he used to win Mom's attention.

My father was barely educated: he stopped attending school in the third grade. And my mother was a book nerd, always reading two or three books at a time. Mom always thought that Dad was the most brilliant man she ever knew. And Dad simply thought mom was the most elegant and well-educated.  Upon marrying, they each believed that they had won the prize. They were always very in love, romantic right until my father died in 1991.

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