Chance

t is often said necessity is the mother of invention. If this can be the case, I became, at the very least, the source of the wedding.

It began innocently enough about three-and-a-half years ago. My youngest son was considering colleges for a master's degree in public policy. After many applications, discussions with me and acceptances received, much to my delight, the choice fell to him. Either Georgetown U. in Washington, D.C. or the Kennedy School at Harvard U. in Boston.

It is here I must enlighten the reader. I have six first cousins. With my sister and myself this brings the group to eight. There is no formal “cousin's club,” no family organizations, but we keep in touch ... Not often, not all on the same basis, but let us say we can count on one another.

One of my cousins, Harvey, forty years old at this time, a bachelor who after dropping out of Yale at age twenty, in his senior year, wound up living alone up in Cambridge, Mass., barely a stone's throw from Harvard Yard. I LOVE Harvey dearly. My wife and I visit Boston a few times a year, always staying in Harvey's guest room.

A word about the house. Many years ago Harvey and a friend bought a three-level, five-apartment house on Kinnaird Street in Cambridge. They occupied one floor, the second, after converting two apartments into one. The top floor was rented as well as the two apartments on the first. When Harvey's friend got married, Harvey moved up to the third floor, giving the second to the newlyweds.

This move followed years of renovation and installation on the second floor. Now the same remake job faced Harvey on the third floor. He started, but alas he never quite got it together. The place always had that do-it-yourself but undone look, liveable, but barely, and by a bachelor. My visits over the years disclosed no appreciable progress in the apartment's state.

Back to the story. I mentioned to my son that if he should choose Harvard, and this was no way at attempt to help him choose, I would call Harvey and ask if he might have an apartment for my son to live in if he went to Harvard. To Harvey this was easy. Within days he got back to me that one of his tenants on the first floor agreed to move since the landlord needed the apartment for his family. Sounds just like New York. With the rent under $200 a month and the prospect of living with my cousin, the decision was a foregone one.

My first visit to Cambridge that first semester was nice, but uneventful. I did meet some of Seth's friends at the school. Two of these, women his age, were very warm, intelligent and interesting. We dined with them, went to the movies together and more or less hung out. On occasion Harvey joined my wife and myself, who together with Seth and his two friends, made for lively and entertaining times.

On one trip up in the fall of 1988, Seth and his friends Judy and Betsy went to a movie with my wife, Harvey and me. I noticed Harvey paying a lot of attention of Betsy. They held hands, Harvey had that look and so did Betsy. When I got Seth alone and questioned him about his new development, he said yes, Harvey was dating Betsy. Months later when I spoke with Harvey, he confessed his love for Betsy. As they say in all the great movies, the rest is history.

He popped the question. Betsy graduated and went home to Maryland to live with her parents. She took a job with the federal government. Harvey's job kept him in Boston. I planted the seed with Harvey ... rent out the apartment and move to Maryland ... follow the love of your life. She said yes, and Harvey and Betsy were married in Maryland on September 9, 1990. Seth was the best man.

I felt that I had set in motion a great chain of personal events. By a true stroke of chance, the wheels of romance were set on the stage of life. The story is just beginning.