Tom and Cathy Clements dated during their sophomore year at University of Colorado Boulder (UCB) in the ‘60s, and didn’t see each other again for 48 years.
“She claims I dumped her [after sophomore year], but I just wasn’t ready to get married,” Tom said. “She then married her husband of 40 years on the rebound.”
Cathy said, “[Tom] was my first love…But he wandered off when we were both 19 and didn’t bother to tell me.”
During the next 48 years, the two had no contact with each other. Cathy said she occasionally thought about looking at him in her yearbook.
Tom had two pictures of Cathy in a photo album, and said he always told people she was “the one I should’ve married.”
Two years ago, Tom decided to attend his 50th high school class reunion in the Chicago area, and ran into a former UCB fraternity brother who lived in Boulder. He and his wife invited Tom to a dinner party with all the old college friends, and told him he should bring a date. They said Cathy lived nearby, and was recently divorced — they suggested he call her.
It turned out Cathy was on vacation at her grandfather’s cabin in Wisconsin. He got her cell number and called, saying, “Hi, Cathy, this is Tom Clements. Would you like to go to a Purple Passion Party with me?” (That’s what they did on their first date in 1965. “Purple Passion” was a frat drink made with Everclear.)
“He called on the exact day of the second anniversary of my divorce,” Cathy said. “When I heard his voice, my heart completely exploded.”
“The connection was instant,” Tom said.
Cathy agreed to meet him, and when she went to the airport, “Somebody to Love” by the Jefferson Airplane was on the radio.
“That was a song from our era,” she said, which she took as a good sign.
Tom picked her up at the airport with a bouquet of roses. Two years later, they were married last July 9 at the cabin in Wisconsin.
Tom is a longtime local Realtor with Sotheby’s, and Cathy is a retired therapist.
