Love & …

This beautiful sculpture art is a design conceived by one Robert Indiana, and first appeared on a Christmas card created for New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1965. While having been reproduced many times, it was first created in this metal sculpture form in 1970. The design also appeared on a U.S. postage stamp in 1973, when — as you see — first class postage cost just eight cents!

The particular sculpture piece shown above is at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, located about 30 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It is one of the early copies, making its way to the campus by the mid-1970s, and had been authorized by Robert Indiana himself.

This is an encore of a Musings first published three years ago … and, of course, is tied to Valentine’s Day, coming up on the 14^th! Part of the motivation to again share with you at this time of the year is not just the fact that I had a happy, love-filled marriage … but how I would be impacted personally just five days later — which I’ll share later.

The origins of Valentine’s Day possibly date back to 5th century A. D. Rome. However, those had nothing to do with how it is defined today, a day on which the candy, floral and greeting card industries stand ready to help us celebrate LOVE! Historically, it appears that 14th century English poet Chaucer was the first person to connect romantic love with Valentine’s Day.

To me, it’s another of those “special days” that bother me — LOVE isn’t something to celebrate one day of the year, rather it’s meant and should be lived every day. Can we say … an anytime, all-the- time thing? And, hopefully you agree, expressing LOVE shouldn’t just be the romantic kind … it should be the caring and respect of others, humans as well as the four-legged kind.

With all that said, please indulge me as I share our personal love story. This photo was taken at my parent’s home in Feasterville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, December 29, 1957 … yes, 61 years ago. The two of us had met only 28 days earlier, when — as noted on Page 23 of my memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion — I had taken my recording equipment to Trenton, New Jersey’s Trinity Cathedral to record choral portions of Handel’s Messiah as being sung by the 150-voice ensemble, the Trenton Community Chorus. Out of this sea of faces, the only one I could see clearly was a redhead in the middle … this lady, Alicia Blood. I sought her out after the rehearsal and, through my shyness, managed to get her phone number and, after several days, got up the courage to call her. This would have been no more than our third date and I doubt we had even kissed yet.

We dated over the next five months until “Uncle Sam” came calling, saying that I was needed in the United States Army … not long afterward Alicia made the decision that, with my being off in who-knows-where, we should go our separate ways. Towards the end of my military service, I met another young lady who became the mother of my three children. However, this relationship did not have long-term endurance, and after a dozen years we parted ways — and, like too many marriages, was not grounded in the LOVE that should have been present.

It was about this time that I received a note from Alicia — how she knew where to find me, as I was in New York City, she cannot remember — asking if I could find her James Last’s recording of “Music From Across the Way.” As I wrote in my memoir, she heard this melody played regularly on Philadelphia’s WWSH, programmed by our competitor, Schulke Radio Productions, and just had to have a recording of it. But the folks at the station could provide no information and no record shop had any idea what she was talking about, as it was not a hit song plus was on an import recording. So, knowing that Marlin could help … she searched me out!

About 10 days after hearing from her, I had a meeting scheduled with a radio station in Philadelphia and planned to drive from my home in northern New Jersey. I called her, saying I had the recording and suggested I could drop it off on the way back north. Then came the thought, it’ll be dinnertime, “how about we have dinner together?”

She said “yes,” so I said “where?” She proposed the River’s Edge restaurant in Lambertville, north of Trenton along the Delaware River. At the appointed time, I arrived at her home and soon Alicia and I headed up-river to the restaurant, which had gained some fame as it was under the ownership of Anne Elstner, who for many years had played the lead role in the long-running radio soap opera, Stella Dallas.

Dinner was ordered, dinner was served; however, over the next couple of hours we chatted and looked into each other’s eyes, but ate very little. Through some providence, after more than 16 years, we had reunited … by the end of that evening I believe we both pretty much knew in our hearts that we would one day be married. That day came on October 18, 1975.

In those intervening years, Alicia had never married, although she notes “having come close more than once.” As for our life together, we’ve been married for 43 years. There have been challenges along the way … and we are presently facing a major one … yet we are thankful for all that we have been gifted with. We believe that we were meant to be together, it just took a long time for the “connection to gel!” And, she and my three children have had a great relationship from the beginning.

As you may know or gather, we are a musical couple … but come from the opposite sides of the fence. Alicia is a professional vocalist and I am a “professional listener,” in that for most of my life, my living has been earned through programming of music for radio.

As I wrap up our “love story,” let me share three photos with you: The one on the left is Alicia holding the poster promoting her 1980 recital in “little” Carnegie Hall in New York City, from which she received an outstanding review by well-respected New York Times music critic, Peter Davis. On the top right is how we looked in 1988 and, below, a picture, of Grandma Alicia surrounded by five of our seven great-grandchildren who, with their parents, stopped by to visit just a month ago.

In closing, all I can say is that it is my wish, my prayer that you have or will experience a love in your life that is half as wonderful and fulfilling as ours has been over these past many years. So, to that I say … Happy Valentine’s Day!

Now, for what occurred just five days after Valentine’s Day 2019, for which I was not prepared: Read Marlin Taylor’s musing about Alicia Taylor.

Image Credits: Love Stamp from TheVintageStampCo on Etsy

Please follow and like us: