Janet flew to Las Vegas six weeks after I came in August of 1979. The first thing I did at the airport was lose my wallet…great first impression. She stayed about six weeks, then used her open return to go back to Rochester to take care of some personal business and to think about whether she wanted to come back and actually move in with me.

I went to Green bay to spend Christmas with my family when Janet called to say she had decided to move permanently to Las Vegas with me. She flew to Green Bay right after Christmas to meet the family. When she arrived at the Green Bay airport after getting on an earlier flight, she got on a pay phone to call me to say she had arrived. Just as she started to dial the phone, she heard a lady ask if she was Janet. Apparently Amy recognized her from a verbal description. It was my sister Amy coming home for Christmas. Janet could not believe she was recognized so far from home.

All went well and we went back to Las Vegas together. Two months later her father and brother surprised us by driving her car packed with belongings from New York and spending a couple of days with us before flying back home. Before that though, I had recently purchased a Toyota Supra sports car with a five speed. After a quick lesson on manual shifting, Janet had to learn quickly. At the time, my main task was to coordinate the delivery and installation of the chocolate making machinery. That involved multiple business trips to Germany and Italy to do that. That meant many weeks alone for Janet.

At the time neither of us knew anyone in Las Vegas other than the people I worked with. I remember one of my bosses, twenty-five years older than us, calling to ask us to spend New Year’s Eve with them. We had a great time. We were impressed with with how generous he and his wife were with their time to make us both more comfortable with the move.

She had a cousin that knew a friend that had moved to las Vegas a year before. He gave Janet his wife’s phone number. She called her and they arranged to meet. They hit it off. We both became good friends with the couple.

By August of 1980, eight months later, we decided it was time to get married. Since Janet’s parents could not afford the trip, we were married quietly by a well known Las Vegas judge arranged through Janet’s work at the wedding chapel shown on the picture here. Sam and Mitzie, the couple we had met here, stood up for the wedding. We celebrated by having dinner at a well known restaurant owned by Paul Anka called Jubilation on Harmon Street. We honeymooned at the old Desert Inn where the Venetian Hotel now stands..