Rare Love

My Beloved and I began our love affair when I was 18 and he was 21 over a rare roast beef sandwich.

I was staying with his family for Christmas since my Navy parents had been suddenly ordered to Japan - there was a little conflict going on back then called the Vietnam War - and the family exchequer didn't stretch to flying the Freshman halfway around the world for Christmas.

MB's mother more or less guilted him into taking me along to the local pub with him and his pals. He ordered himself a Seven and Seven and me a sloe gin fizz, the cool drinks in those days, and we shared a roast beef sandwich. Now, this was in New York state, where they know how to make a real roast beef sandwich. It was piled high with good, rare, shaved roast beef, and embellished with a little lettuce and mayo. We munched and laughed and flirted, and the icy knot of loneliness I had harbored since learning that I would be spending my first Christmas away from my family began to ease.

My whole heart melted in the next few weeks as I figured out that this sweet, funny, honorable man was someone very special in my life. Forty plus years later, we still like our roast beef sandwiches rare and we still melt into gooey puddles at the memory of that first one.