It was July 21st, 1962,
my twenty-fifth birthday.
I gambled five dollars
and won the local lottery
to have dinner with Marilyn Monroe
in downtown Cincinnati.
We met at six at the Netherland Hilton.
Marilyn Monroe was quite shy,
so I did most of the talking,
telling her stories from my Upper Peninsula youth.
After dessert and coffee
Marilyn Monroe invited me to her room
to meet her little dog Maf.
I closed the door behind us
and leaned forward to kiss her
but the moment I touched her elbow
I fainted and fell flat on the floor.
Marilyn Monroe helped me back to my feet.
I apologized profusely
but she said, “Don’t worry,
this happens to me all the time.”
That ended my special evening.
I actually thought about
flying to Hollywood to visit her
but then, just two weeks later,
Marilyn Monroe died
from an overdose of sleeping pills.
The world has never been quite the same.
