Blind Date, Proposal
The Very Same Ni

weet tweet. Gong Gong."
Those, my friends, were the
sounds of little love birds flying cir-
cles around the hearts of Stewart
and Elaine Perlman 35 years ago
and the noise of bells ringing some-
where far of
Know what? Those bells are still
ringing, and those birds have nev-
er flown south.
Ever think it's possible to fall in
love and ask for someone's hand in
marriage all in one night?
Nah, it only happens in the
movies or those grocery-store pa-
perbacks. Probably the invention
of some lovesick author trying to
make the rest of us feel good.
For Stewart and Elaine, Cupid
not only shot an arrow through
their emotions, he gonged them on
the head with the heavy artillery.
They were a blind date! Re-
member, blind date-a-phobes, it can
happen to you. Stewart was so con-
cerned at the time of their date that
he asked another couple to join
them. He ended up not paying
much attention to his friends, in-

The Perimans: Living in a bit stead keeping a strong eye on
of a fairy tale.
Elaine. He couldn't get over the

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thought that just a couple of hours
into the date with Elaine, he want-
ed to marry her.
OK, who hasn't had a thought
like that at one time or another?
OK, maybe he couldn't get the
sounds of those bells out of his head.
OK, who was that little naked
winged nymph with the bow and
arrow following him around?
By the time he had dropped
Elaine off at her home at 2 a.m. and
traveled the miles home, he had
made up his mind. He was 25, liv-
ing at home. She was 22, also at
home.
The phone rang at Elaine's house
at 5 in the morning. What do you
do when the phone rings for you at
that time? You worry that someone
is either sick or dead or it's some
sort of bad prank. Elaine picked up
the phone. Her mother got up with
the ring, not knowing that with this
ring would come an engagement
ring.
Because before the sun rose on
metro Detroit, Stewart was asking
Elaine to marry him.
She accepted. The blind date had
eyes.

Thirty-five years later, the cou-
ple sits in their lovely West Bloom-
field home, talking about those
days. Those eyes shoot glimpses at
one another that suggest nothing
but even more torrid love now than
then.

By the time
dessert was
served,
like turned
to love

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

"You can go with a guy forever,
and you still might not know if you
are really right for one another. I
was very happy," said Elaine. "I
was just starting a job in a physi-
cian's office. One of the pharma-
ceutical reps knew Stewart, who

now has a real estate business. This
guy thought we'd like each other."
Stewart: "I had never been on a
blind date before. We went to a
lovely restaurant, and I remember
thinking, like you a lot."'
By the time dessert was served,
like turned to love, and marriage
came with coat check.
"I loved him," said Elaine, who
now has an interior design busi-
ness. "I just felt good being with
him from the start. Yes, it was a big
surprise, but there was no question
he was the man I wanted to be
with."
There was a problem. No, not
with the wedding plans or the en-
gagement or the parents or any-
thing like that. It was a problem
that only a person on the dating
scene could relate to.
Stewart popped the question a
few days prior to New Year's Eve.
Elaine had a date that evening.
Stewart insisted she break the date.
But when she tried, her date
wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He
said that if Elaine didn't have a ring
on her finger, the engagement
wasn't real.
Stewart still gets a sparkle in his
eyes when he talks about how he
instructed Elaine to tell the date
that he would pay him back for the
money he might have lost on New
Year's.
"I never thought I'd do something
like this," said Stewart. "It hap-
pened. There. was just no thinking
about it. Sometimes there's a feel-
ing between two people that's real,
and where there's no baloney in-
volved.
"I don't think dating a certain
length of time makes for a suc-
cessful relationship," he continued.
"If you don't know pretty early that
you'll love someone, you'll never
know."
The couple was married three
months later at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek by Rabbis Adler and
Siegel.
Years later, the couple looks at
beautiful photos of their two adult
daughters, Robin and Ronna, their
husbands and their four grand-
children.
"Our daughters sometimes
would ask if they'd have to hear
bells ringing or something like that
to know when it was right," said

Elaine. "No, we told them they'd
know."
It's a family made in heaven,
that started on a blind date.
"If you love each other, you can
do anything," said Elaine. "You
have to live in a bit of a fairy tale
sometime." 0

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