Anita Gold is a mom who believes romance sometimes needs a little nudge.
“Here he is pushing 30,” says Anita, of Boca Raton, in a what-else-was-a-mother-to-do mode. “And there are no ladies on the horizon. So this mother took the bull by the horns and, unbeknownst to him, I placed an ad in the Detroit Jewish News. In the personals column.”
“Him” is son Howard, who lives outside Detroit. And her little plot was not unbeknownst to him, he says by phone. She had threatened to place an ad on numerous occasions.
Anyway, as Anita recalls it, the ad read: Looking for a young lady to help me remodel my house, and who knows what else? Unattached. 6 foot 1. Michigan State graduate.
Forty eager women responded, and Anita gleefully winnowed the list. “Any that began, ‘My name is Susie, and I love fine wines,’ or ‘I love to sail on the QE II,’ I dumped in the garbage,” she says.
About the same time, in the same newspaper, another ad appeared. It said something about being sick of dating mama’s boys, wanting a male who is secure, who is GQ, one who enjoys both shooting pool and going to art museums. Anita’s pulse raced. She fired off a reply – in Howard’s name.
— Jackie Sorkin took it as a challenge when her daughter Nicki, after a particularly dismal date, declared, “I’m not going to date any more Jewish guys.”
Fearing her daughter was serious, Jackie hinted around about personal ads, how she’d heard they could work and how maybe it might be worth a try.
“If you really think it’s going to work, go for it, Ma,” Nicki said.
Of the 20 or so responses, it was Howard’s (or rather Anita’s) that caught the young woman’s eye.
He (she) said he was sensitive, extremely down-to-earth, interested in camping, biking, tennis.
The letter also said the last name was Gold “as in solid” and that if she wasn’t interested, to just recycle the paper (the letter was written on recycled stationery). “I thought that was clever,” Nicki says.
A telephone number was included.
— Howard, a construction engineer and home remodeler, wasn’t surprised when a strange woman called from Flint, Mich. He figured it was his mom’s handiwork.
Nicki remembers well their first meeting. When Howard strode into the restaurant-bar where they had agreed to meet, she caught her breath. “I said, yes, God, punish me. Let it be him. He’s gorgeous.”
The next day, Howard called to set up another date. It was on the second date that Nicki ‘fessed up.
“By the way,” she said, “my mother placed the ad.”
“My mother answered it,” Howard replied.
That was in July 1991. Last May, the couple was married.
Looking for love in the classifieds was not something Nicki would have done on her own, she says. “I still can’t believe it worked out so well.”
“It’s kind of a fluke,” Howard says. “Most people don’t end up meeting the person they marry this way. Usually you go out with these people, and it doesn’t work out.”
— Howard and Nicki and their moms will be guests on the Vicki Lawrence show on Monday, Valentine’s Day. The show will air at 10 a.m. on WCIX-Ch. 6 and at 2 p.m. on WTVX-Ch. 34.
