Well, the Wellstone Campaign was kicking off in the Fall of 1989.  Both of us were Wellstone volunteers.  I was at a birthday party for a Lawyer’s Guild friend.  There was Ellen and I asked her to dance.  (This is The First Dance I’m talking about.)  Got her phone number.  Week later called for a date.  The day of the big night arrived and she calls saying she’s sick but can she have a rain check.  “Well,” I said, “there’s a bunch of us going out dancing Wednesday nite before Thanksgiving, if you want to come with . . .?”

A populist for all time – Sen. Paul Wellstone, Ellen, Andy & Shelia

She said it sounded great and that’s how she met Vickie, who had married and moved to Chicago, and Kathleen, just a friend by then, and Trudie, who I only flirted with.  All friends from DFL politics.   (In Minnesota the Democratic Party is known as the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, or DFL.)  Vickie was coming back from Chicago for the Thanksgiving Weekend and Kathleen had arranged for all of us to get together.

Ellen claims the reason that first date was so great was because she learned much about me from the others.  Good thing Vickie, Kathleen and Trudie still adored me as a person, even if our love was only figurative at that point.  If there’s a lesson here boys, I’m not sure quite how to tell it, I guess it depends on how well you studied the lessons in the “Apologies to Hannah & Annie” story.

Tomorrow:  First Came Love . . .