In case you do not know or guess, all my stories about animals, large and small, people, and “serendipitous events” all happened as I can best recall, and my recall is pretty darn good. This story is about how I met Lenette.
At a job fair in 1951 at UCLA, where I was hiring staff for my Day Camp, Purple Sage, Lenette approached my table and bluntly asked about the philosophy of the camp. Not the job or pay, but the philosophy? Very unusual. I instantly fell in love with her and loved the opportunity to wax freely about “my” philosophy. She asked many questions and said that she had a job at the local YMCA as a swimming instructor.
She loved the description of my pragmatic philosophy and said she’d like a job as a counselor rather than her job at the Y. I hired her immediately, and she left to meet her friends. She told them about the camp and, as an afterthought, mentioned that she was going to marry me. In the meantime, I told the guys sitting at the table next to mine, “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.” Serendipitous? I think so.
During camp, I would visit each group as often as possible, not to interfere but to help if needed. With Lenette, it was a little different. It was wanting to be next to her, and she, a wonderful counselor, never needed or wanted my assistance. She applied the philosophy as perfectly as possible. Lenette was not a horse person, but her kids learned to ride. She liked Sunny, a gentle palomino owned by George Tobias, an actor who lived on the estate we leased for camp. One Sunday, she agreed to go on a ride. Lenette rode Sunny, and I rode 71. We rode for an hour or two, and on the way back, I dismounted to open a gate, and Sunny reared, and Lenette fell into my arms. We kissed a deep passionate kiss and, hand in hand, walked, with the setting sun dropping into the Pacific, back to camp.
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