A Long Distance Romance, Pre-Internet...

I found my soul mate in 1985. We both were attending Boston University. I graduated and was accepted into the graduate program at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Yikes! How was this going to work? About 1500 miles and 2 to 3 time zones (depending on DST which AZ doesn't follow). This was before the internet, before email became common (there was intra-school email, but only top researchers had across the arpanet email), and there was no real alternative way to communicate except ol' Ma Bell. Needless to say I subsidized AT&T for almost 2 years with about $100 a month long distance bills.

The telephone was the only interactive way to communicate at that time. Post cards and letters were used, but not that often. Every second to third evening was spent having a quick talk on the phone. Once a week we had a 'date' on the phone, usually ranging from 30 minutes to an hour. With that kind of contact and a great amount of trust and love we made it work. That and the summer of 1988 was spent together in Tuscon as I continued my graduate work and she had a work study job transcribing language samples for the linguistics department. I coped in other ways as well, by reuniting with my birth religion, volunteering, school, work and sometimes, just driving around Tucson. The most difficult time in the long distance relationship came later that winter into the spring of 1989 as wedding planning progressed. But that is for another time....

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia