Love Story: Ramon and Juliet Musiker

Ramon "Ray" and Juliet Musiker of Lynbrook have been making beautiful music together for 60 years. Juliet recalls the day they met.

In 1952, I was a student music teacher assigned to Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I was 21 and very excited to begin my career. On my first day of school, I was in the music chairman's office and met Ramon "Ray" Musiker, the band teacher. What an awesome name for a musician, I thought.

Ray's class was one of several I was observing for my college credit. I wanted to get to know him, so I decided to have a party at my parents' home and invite him. As I gathered the courage during the next few weeks to ask Ray to the party, he made the first move and asked me out.

Our first date, of course, was to listen to music at a local club. Ray, who was 26, lived in Williamsburg, and I lived in Seagate. We dated for nine months and were married on June 28, 1953.

During our first summer as a married couple, Ray played clarinet and saxophone with the Stevensville Hotel band in the Catskills. The following summer we went back to the mountains, where he performed with the Ben Zuger band at the Windsor Hotel in South Fallsburg, and I became the band's singer. We spent the next three summers performing in the Catskills.

In 1956, we moved to Lynbrook, where we raised three great children.

While Ray and I continued working as music teachers in the New York City school system, we both would work as musicians for various social eventson weekends. We also gave private music lessons to many wonderful students.

After 32 years as a teacher, Ray retired in 1982 but still performed as a musician. He played at one of the inaugural balls in Washington, D.C., in 1989 after George H.W. Bush was elected president.

He started a third career playing klezmer music, an Eastern European Jewish music. In this genre, he toured Europe a few times and released two albums.

I retired as an elementary school music teacher in 1995. I have run into students who are now grown with children of their own, and they always remember Mrs. Musiker!

This year we are celebrating our 60th anniversary with our children, six grandchildren, family and friends.

Who knew that a student-teaching position would turn out to be a path filled with music, joy and love? I look forward to many more years of married harmony with Ray.