From chapter 13. Susan and Columbia

As I walked into one of the Victoria’s elevators I found myself facing a young woman wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt. At that precise moment I recalled that Tom Lieder, one of my Cornell roommates, had given me the names of a few girls from his hometown who had just graduated from the University of Michigan and moved to Manhattan. I blurted out, “You must be Jackie Sand, from Shaker Heights.” What were the odds that she was that person? A hundred thousand to one? A million to one? Amazingly, she actually was Jackie Sand. She stared at me, dumbfounded—and a little freaked out. I explained that Tom was our mutual friend and then she realized who I was. Jackie then invited me and Marty to a party she and two of her roommates had planned for September 19 to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of the fourth person in their apartment, Susan Lavitt.
Susan was a smart, cute, lively young woman who had grown up in the affluent Kings Point section of Great Neck, on the north shore of Long Island. It was not exactly love at first sight—Susan had recently broken up with a boyfriend who was a law student at Michigan, and I still missed my Cornell girlfriend who had sailed off to France for a year. . . i was shy about asking her out on a Saturday night, but when she started appearing unannounced at our door with some lame request or just to say hello I became emboldened. On our first real date, in early December, we saw the romantic Elvira Madigan at the arty Cinema One on the Upper East Side. The evening had begun awkwardly when Susan spilled the contents of her purse on Fourteenth Street as we walked to the Lexington Avenue subway. We laughed as we scooped up her makeup, wallet, keys, tissues, and other assorted girl stuff. After perhaps three or four more dates over the next two weeks I was lovesick, to the point that while visiting my parents during Christmas vacation I could not stop thinking about her. Luckily she seemed to feel the same way about me, and in January we knew it was the real thing. She was The Girl.

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One fine day in June, while lying in bed next to Susan, I whispered in her ear that I thought that we should get married. Not exactly the traditional means of popping the question, but it achieved its objective. Susan said “yes”—or maybe it was just “Really? . . . OK.” A few days later she suggested that perhaps we should live together for a while to see if we were compatible enough for a lasting marriage. I thought about it, but decided I wanted a greater commitment. She agreed, and we proceeded to plan our wedding.
Susan was hardworking and compassionate, with many wonderful qualities that elevated her far above the stereotypical Long Island Jewish Princess. But she still expected her parents to pay for a big Jewish wedding, especially since they had provided one for her sister Louise. Time was of the essence, since the draft clouded my future. I was trying to obtain a deferment, but the outcome of my appeal was still very much in doubt. As a backup plan I had applied for a place in the Army Reserves. We thought it would be better for us if we were married before I started my military service, which would probably involve a few months of basic training in a Reserve unit. Fleeing to Canada was still an option as far as I was concerned, but was not appealing to Susan. I told her that if I went into the Army she could live with my parents, but she did not even dignify that idea with an answer. Perhaps subconsciously I feared that if we waited until my return from basic training, Susan might lose interest in me and find another boyfriend. I did not want to lose her.

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We were excited about the upcoming Democratic National Convention. . .My father would be attending as a delegate for Eugene McCarthy.. . .
The convention attracted thousands of radical activists, many of them college students, gathered to protest the Vietnam War. On Wednesday, August 28, (my twenty-third birthday), Chicago’s mayor, Richard J. Daley, ordered the city’s police to break up the demonstrations, drive the protesters off the city’s streets, and arrest all who resisted. A national television audience witnessed live confrontations between the Chicago cops and dissidents. The crowds chanted “The whole world is watching” as the officers pelted them with tear gas and beat them with clubs, leaving many of the radicals dazed, bloodied, and bruised. . . .
In the midst of this chaos my mother called me in New York from her hotel room. She was alarmed by the smell of tear gas that was wafting by her window and by the violent clashes on the streets below that I was simultaneously witnessing on my small black and white television. She was also worried sick about the safety of my father, who of course was perfectly secure a few blocks away at the convention center. It was a surreal scene and a bizarre telephone conversation. I tried to calm my mother by distracting her with a reminder that our wedding was just eleven days away. But that just seemed to make her more anxious.

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September 8, 1968 was a beautiful day in New York City, with clear blue skies, comfortable temperatures, and low humidity. The rabbi of Susan’s Great Neck temple conducted the traditional wedding ceremony. I was nervous about breaking the glass (actually a light bulb) at the ritual’s end, but I stomped it to pieces, and the partying began. All of the guys were there, except for Kevin, who was still recovering from illnesses he had contracted just before he returned from France. Susan and I danced to our favorite songs, especially the Supremes’ hit “I’m Going to Make You Love Me.” We spent our wedding night in another fancy hotel on Central Park South, because I was annoyed that the Plaza’s management did not include an overnight room in its wedding package. The next morning we moved our gifts back to our apartment, deposited dozens of checks, and drove out to East Hampton for our honeymoon—a week’s stay at the historic “1770 House.” The weather was still warm, and the beaches were deserted. It was a romantic way of launching a marriage that lasted for nearly forty years, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health,” until death parted us.