by: Brooke Allen
brooke@brookeallen.com www.BrookeAllen.com
My Grandma Anne was a southern belle born and raised in Dallas. Granddad Tom was raised in Chicago and sent from home at 14 to earn has way as a man. They met in New York City.
Anne had entered a beauty contest. In those days (before the bikini) young ladies were judged on poise, grace and intelligence. She won.
First prize: a week in New York. All expenses paid.
At first she was excited. Then it occurred to her that she didn’t know a soul in that Yankee city.
A friend set up a blind date for her first day in the Big Apple. She was to meet him under the big clock above the 42nd street entrance to Grand Central Station.
She leaned against the western wall as she inspected the young man standing across from her.
“Gawd,” she thought to herself, “let it not be him.”
It was.
At first they weren’t attracted to each other but they were both desperately lonely, for Tom had no friends in the city either. What’s more, on Sunday he was to be shipped out to Cuba by the United Press International, his employer.
They spent all of that week together and on Saturday Anne decided not to return to her life in Dallas.
That is how it came to be that my father was born in Havana.
They had picked the path that promised the most adventure.
Brooke Allen 