Falling in love is too unpredictable to be on anyone’s agenda. It just happens, and sometimes so suddenly that it’s difficult to know exactly what the outcome will be.
With three years of college plus two years in the military already behind me, I was ready to move ahead with the remaining two years of college needed to graduate.
Except for some occasional dating I had never given much attention to the social side of life. As a result, I wasn’t prepared for what happened when I met Maxine at an event in her home town of nearby Indianapolis. That I lived near the Purdue campus only an hour away from there made it even more convenient.
We took a liking to each other so intently that after seeing each other over the next few weeks we had already eased into happy talk about marriage. That was even before we had firmly resolved the question of whether we were truly right for each other. As for me, I felt as if I was truly in love.
Then the unthinkable happened. During what promised to be another delightful date, she began offering several confusing apologies, that she had decided to end our relationship. Shocked by what I had just heard, I desperately tried to guide us through some kind of reasoning process, but she would have none of it. To her, I was no longer a part of her life. Period.
Numb and bewildered, I stayed wide awake that night, my brain returning to and reviewing all the good times she and I had together, how everything had come so easily and wonderfully, only to collapse without any apparent cause.
Come morning, I happened to think of one possible source of badly needed moral support — Maxine’s sister, Amy, whose husband was a Purdue student. They were one of several married couples living in university owned temporary housing units. I visited with them soon after Maxine and I began dating.
It was during my first visit with them that Amy introduced me to Lenny, another Purdue student who along with his wife was living in the apartment next to theirs. The fact that he was a new quarterback on the Purdue football team made for some instant and interesting conversation.
I held out little hope that Amy would ask her sister to reconsider, but thought she might provide me with some insights concerning her behavior.
After lunch, I went over to see Amy. Luckily, she was home and I spilled out the whole story to her. She told me she wasn’t surprised by her sister’s behavior, that she so much wanted to warn me that Maxine had treated two other men in similar fashion — led them to a critical point in the relationship, then dropped them. She felt, however, it wasn’t her place to interfere.
Although I understood, it did little to ease the pain of having been led astray by a girl I thought I had come to love.
As I said goodbye to Amy, I noticed that the nearby door to Lenny’s apartment was open. He was reading a newspaper while comfortably slumped in a chair.
He looked up, smiled, laid the newspaper aside, greeted me, and asked how things were going. Fighting back the tears, I explained what had happened. He listened attentively but became even more interested when I told him I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know how I was ever going to survive.
With that, he looked directly at me, paused, and said. “Sure, you’re having a tough time, but you need to get on with it.”
Those words said it all. What really got to me, however, was his quiet, reassuring, and convincing tone of voice. Instantly, I saw myself no longer mired in a painful present but ready to move on to a much better beyond.
My story ends there, but here’s what you might like to know about Lenny.
Lenny was the nickname of Len Dawson. After serving both Purdue and the Big Ten Conference as an outstanding quarterback, went on to play with the Pittsburg Steelers and the Cleveland Browns before joining the Kansas City Chiefs.
Leading the Chiefs to win Super Bowl IV was just one of a long list of career records he set and honors he received including being inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. After his playing days were over, he became sports director for KMBC-TV in Kansas City and commentator for the Chiefs.
Among his team mates he was known as “Lenny the Cool” because of his ability to remain calm and poised and to act with consistent and optimistic restraint when under pressure.
Little did they know that in his distant past, Lenny had used that same cool and logical touch to help a fellow college student recover from the sharp edge of a lost love.
