Montreal, Booked
“You see what you know”
— Frank Stella
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As usual, my wife did not mince her words. “That’s so sexist of you, misogynistic even!” She had grown up in the 60’s and 70’s in New Jersey. I had grown up in the 50’s and 60’s in Cape Town, South Africa. She hung out in hippy groups, read lots of books, gave no thought to dating, marriage and children. I was of the gray flannel suit generation; we dated formally with Saturday night being prime time, married by age 22 and mostly had our children by age 30.
Now this is key. As a young university student, I would never call a popular girl on a Wednesday or later to ask her out for the weekend. A call this late was guaranteed to elicit a negative “sorry, I’m booked” response. In fact, call this late in the week might be perceived as downright insulting.
In this photo, a bespectacled young woman is ordering lunch with an older woman, perhaps her mother or a co-worker. Her unstylish bookish appearance suggests she is probably free for a last-minute date. Her bag, however, speaks for her. It says “no, I’m not free, I’m all booked up.” When Goldie viewed the photograph, all she saw was an intelligent woman who loves books.
Conclusion: Don’t marry a younger woman from another country.