I was a teenager preparing to attend Sequoia Junior High School in Reseda in 1960. My father learned that there was a new drama teacher at the school named Mr. C who was putting on his first play. Since my father had performed in Indiana at Fairmount High School (the same school James Dean had gone to), we went to the play together.
It was a silly but entertaining comedy with a strange title: “A Rocket in Your Pocket.” Mr. C's next play was another dark and quirky little show titled “Coming Out.” It is clear that neither of the works would be chosen in today's world, but at the time the public greeted them both with enthusiasm.
A few years later, I took a theater class from Mr. C and was lucky enough to be cast as Anne in his production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” (Obviously, her production options had improved.)
As the eldest of three siblings, I was already quite experienced when Mr. C asked me to babysit his two young children. It didn't happen often, but he gave me the opportunity to meet his wife. Reseda High School was close to Sequoia, which made it easier for me to later attend Mr. C's later shows, including “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and even “1984.”
Suddenly and tragically, Mr. C's young wife died of cancer. I felt sorry for my former teacher and volunteered to help babysit his children, for free, while he taught summer school. He was attending what was then San Fernando Valley State College when a lonely Mr. C called me that fall and invited me to dinner as a thank you for babysitting. Me? The babysitter?
He still surprised me despite knowing him for several years. I had seen all of his works and we knew many of the same people. And he especially loved his children. So why not accept his invitation? We went to dinner at Yamashiro in Hollywood and ended up spending three hours talking and talking. It turned out that even though he was 18 years older than me, we had a lot in common.
That wonderful dinner led to another dinner at Hoppe's Old Heidelberg in Los Angeles. After that, there were dinners in the Valley with his children at Bob's Big Boy, Piece o' Pizza and Van de Kamp Bakery. As we spent more time together, we realized that although several people he knew (including my mother) weren't crazy about the idea, we were in love and wanted to get married.
So we did it.
Nothing was easy for us in those first years. We were raising her two children who had lost their mother. He was working on his master's degree in theater and directing plays, and I was going to college to get my teaching credential. We soon realized that a teacher's salary was not enough. We never seemed to have enough money.
Consequently, we took a chance in 1974 and tried out for “Gambit,” a CBS game show hosted by Wink Martindale. With a combination of personality, trivia knowledge, and a lot of luck, we were on the show for four days and actually won $18,000 in cash and prizes, much more than Mr. C's annual salary at the time!
It was an experience that changed our lives. Mr. C also faced another big change when he left Sequoia Junior High and transferred to Chatsworth High School. His theater program there attracted top students (many of whom became famous) and together they put on productions such as “Grease,” “The Elephant Man,” “Equus,” “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and “A “Chorus Line”. ”for a supportive community.
Plus, we discovered that we both loved to travel. As a result, we organize theater trips for your theater students to take them to London, Paris and New York. Years later we branched out and traveled over spring break with hundreds of his students and a few adults to Japan, Australia, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. That was our great whim: spending extra money on trips.
After our kids graduated high school, we decided to try something different. Since we both had our master's degrees and had taught in California for many years, we were hired to teach at Taipei American School in Taiwan.
For the first time in our marriage, we were alone, in our charming but funky little house in the hills above the city. It was like a honeymoon for us. After 10 fantastic years teaching and producing shows at the school, we returned to live locally for a few years and spend time with our daughters and grandchildren. Mr. C had retired, but I still wanted to return to teaching internationally. Some time later, I accepted a job teaching third grade at a small private school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“It's only for two years,” I promised my mother.
But I had to break that promise because our time in Malaysia turned into another romantic interlude as we shared nine happy years in the tropics. Mr. C's most important job there was to play Santa Claus for all the elementary school classes during the holidays. This time he enjoyed acting and not directing.
Now we are back home and living in Westlake Village. Our traveling days may be over, but fortunately we keep journals of all the trips we've taken over 50 years to over 100 countries. Every day we reread one of them and remember our adventures in Tanzania, South Africa, Europe, Argentina, China, India, Sri Lanka and beyond. We can practically taste the foods we ate years ago, listen to the music, and delight in the colorful dances and shows we saw around the world.
Our unlikely romance that many thought had little chance of success turned into a true lifelong partnership. For 57 years, I have loved being married to Robert Carrelli (he is now 93 years old) and I am so happy that Mr. C made the bold decision to marry his 18-year-old nanny on March 17, 1967.
The author is a retired international educator who lives in Westlake Village. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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