Children like to believe in fairy tales. Growing up, we thought the story of how Dad and Mom met on a Washington DC stage seemed magical. We've held on to those feelings all these years. Even though their marriage ended in separation before my second birthday. Before my sister's first birthday.
Phoebe Miller had been working in a bank when she won a singing and dancing role in a Hexagon Club production of "On the Rocks". Dad was one of the skit writers. Since 1956, The Hexagon Club has been producing satirical political musical and comedy revues. Dad and his writers had plenty of fresh material that spring. The Kennedy Administration had just taken office.
The writers of "On the Rocks" including Dad who was then one of the editors of the satirical Monocle Magazine. Said Dad upon seeing the photograph: "I was clearly more amusing then."
The dancers of On the Rocks. Mom is third from left.
March 1961 Washington DC
If Mom made an immediate impression it's not to be found in Dad's datebook. It's filled with "evenings of fun and frolic" with another woman. Dinner dates with yet another. In fact, he doesn't schedule mom's name in his datebook until October 3.
Mom made no mention of Courty that Summer when she visited her mother and sister in Colorado.
But they did fall in love with each other that autumn. In fewer than three months, they'd be married. But not before both his mother and father warned Dad it was a bad idea to make such a commitment so quickly.
1961199o
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