Love Story: Their romance got a running start in high school

Patricia Brown (nee Burns) of Amityville talks about how she met her husband, Curtis.

  

I met Curtis Brown in 1964. My family had moved to Amityville from the Bronx and I was in the ninth grade at the former Copiague Junior-
Senior High School.

Since our last names, Brown and Burns, started with the same letter, we sat in the same row in homeroom. I had to pass his desk to get to my seat behind his. I was 14 and Curtis was 16; he was older because his mother enrolled him in school later.

My girlfriend Connie, who was also from the Bronx, attended the same school, so we would talk about boys and who we should like. I asked her whom I should like, and she said, “What about Curtis Brown?”

I said, “That guy in my homeroom?”

I wasn’t interested at first, but she insisted he was nice. She said he was on the basketball team and that I would like him.

I gave it more thought and asked her to tell him to visit my house. He lived about four miles away from me, and he would walk or jog over after track practice. I would give him a time limit to jog to over because he was a runner and it would help him with his training.

When he arrived, we would play games, watch “Soul Train” on TV, listen to music and dance. From the time he started coming over, he was my boyfriend and we were committed to each other. On our first date, we went to see a movie — that was back when the Village of Amityville had a movie theater. He was voted most outstanding athlete at our school in 1968.

We dated for a time on and off.

After a breakup, Curtis came to my house and proposed by standing beneath a window and saying, “If we get back together, we’re getting married,” and I agreed.

We were married on April 18, 1975, at the Suffolk County Courthouse in Hauppauge by Judge Marquette L. Floyd, the first Black judge elected to the county’s District Court; he later served on the State Supreme Court.

After the ceremony, we celebrated with a party in Manhattan with family and friends. Eventually, we had a honeymoon, traveling to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, where we also renewed our vows after 30 years on a boat ride with music.

Curtis is a good provider and protector. He worked two jobs at times to make sure our family had what we needed. I worked as a teacher in the Amityville schools and pride myself on being a housewife, mother and grandmother.

As Curtis and I celebrate 47 years of marriage, we still enjoy traveling with each other, mostly to the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, to visit my sister, and Jamaica, and to Tanzania. We’re both retired and spend lots of quality time with our family. I also enjoy exercising, yoga and strength training.

We have two accomplished daughters, one with a master’s degree from Adelphi University, the other with a master’s from Hofstra University. One is a schoolteacher in Long Island City, Queens; the other teaches in Hempstead. We are blessed with a handsome, smart, 12-year-old grandson who plays basketball and dances with the Venettes Cultural Workshop in Dix Hills.

For our most recent anniversary, Curtis gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and we had a special dinner at home. We look forward to celebrating our 50th anniversary.

I made a good choice when I accepted Curtis’ proposal under the window that night many years ago. We’ve had a long, loving life together.

 — With Lynn Petry