Different Beginnings

This morning I'm going off-topic to respond to a comment TJ made a few days ago. He asked how I met his dad, my first husband.

I was an unmotivated major in college. No, I didn't say undeclared. I said unmotivated. I went to college because everybody I knew was going to college. I majored in music because everybody said I should major in music. I didn't have a clue of the purpose of college. It was just something to be gotten through.

I attended one horrible (to me) college outside of Chattanooga for a year, dropping out two weeks before finals the second semester I was there. (Okay, I'll divulge. It was Southern Missionary College. I still shudder to say the name — I hated it that much.) I changed majors at least four times during that year. Then I enrolled in Florida Technological University (now Univ. of Central Florida) for two quarters. I was now a music major, although I didn't know what I would do with it when I completed the degree. That summer I transferred to Florida State University, thinking maybe I could find whatever I was looking for there. But when I took my auditions for placement as a piano performance major, the music department administration told me I couldn't major in piano performance. No explanation. Just "no, thanks". I had been playing piano since I was three-and-a-half. It was, truly, all I knew how to do. And to be told I couldn't major in piano performance — well, I was thrown for a loop. Midway through my third quarter at FSU, I dropped out and went back to Orlando.

My summer job from the previous summer was open again, as a permanent position, so I became the promotion and public service copy writer for the CBS affiliate television station in Orlando. I liked the job, but somewhere in the back of my head was the knowledge that I should go back to school.

Cheryl, my piano duet partner from FTU, and I kept in close touch. When the Fall quarter began, she started telling me about a new guy who had just transferred in to FTU from FSU. She went on and on about how musical he was and how she thought I would like him.

I started back at FTU the following January (1971) and on the second day of classes, met Terry Clark. I was standing in the music department (which at that time consisted of about six rooms) waiting for choir rehearsal to begin. Cheryl called me over and introduced me to a tall dark-haired guy with enormous dimples.

Terry was taking about 30 credit hours that quarter, cramming a four year course of study into three years (as opposed to me, who crammed a tough four year course into twenty years!). One of his independent study choral conducting projects was a small choral group which would perform some rarely heard works. In introducing me, Cheryl said to Terry, "You should get Jan in your group. She's really good and has perfect pitch." Terry, being the serious musician that he was, expected me to ask what works he had programmed or what periods he would focus on. Me? Nah, I only wanted to know who else was going to be in the group. When I heard Mary Lou was singing and Cheryl was accompanying, I was in.

Cheryl and I kept scheming to get Terry to ask me out. About a month later, the Orange County Fair was in town, and Cheryl suggested to Terry that he and I double-date with her and her fiancé, Larry. We went out for pizza, then went to the fair. The following week, we saw each other almost every night. The following Saturday night, he uttered that infamous statement, "I believe God would have me marry you."

We were married that year. I played the piano and he sang for Cheryl and Larry's wedding in June. Terry composed a wedding march for our October wedding that Cheryl played on the piano. I knew two weeks into the marriage that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. (Sorry, TJ and Tyler, if you've never heard me say that. All my friends have heard me say it repeatedly.) Ten years and two sons later, we divorced. Hey God, if that really was you telling him to marry me, thanks — I wouldn't trade my sons for anything!

And where's Cheryl now? In Westchester County, on her third marriage (the really good one) with her daughter having just started college in Tampa as a marine biology major and, what else, a music minor. We're still dearest friends and meet in NYC every October for a Broadway weekend. This year it's "Wicked" and "Spamalot".

Oh, and TJ, I'd love to hear your dad's response if you made the same request of him!