Meeting Fred

I have been watching the @meetcutesnyc, where someone asks random couples how they met. The stories are entertaining. I love a story about how a couple got together. It made me think about how Fred and I met. Since I have plunged headfirst into the cannabis space, I figured I would share our story.

I never went back home to live after my freshman year, so I needed a place to live my sophomore summer. I was attending Simmons College, and I knew that the MIT fraternity houses rented out their rooms to women over the summer. Of course, they did.

I had been at a Beta party once, so I looked into what was available. I called to make an appointment with one of the house managers to check out the digs. I met with Fred’s sidekick, Jim. He took a liking to me, so he offered me the single room at the top of their brownstone at 119 Bay State Road. An incredible location and a beautiful street just a few steps from Kenmore Square. It was a massive house with an expansive circular staircase to the fourth floor. I took it.

I moved in sometime in May after classes ended and my dorm closed for the season. My one room was located in the front of the four floor. Jim and Fred, who I had yet to meet, lived in fourth rear. There was a desk and an elevated bed that needed a ladder to access. Where was the ladder?

I walked across the way where Fred sat on a build-in couch/lounge spot connected to the bay window overlooking the Charles. They had a huge round wooden spool for a coffee table that Con Ed used for their wires, aka Jim’s father worked there. It was pretty sweet, considering it was a fraternity house. I said hi and asked Fred where I could get a ladder for the bed. Keep in mind that he was the co-house manager, so it was his job, but he was not exactly nice about it. He begrudgingly pointed me in the right direction.

Fast forward, I had completely moved in, but the bigger question was, where can I buy some weed around here? So I returned to fourth rear and asked Fred my second question. He was slightly more animated with the answer, telling me I could come over anytime and get some because they grew the plant.

He then showed me a sizeable dumb waiter closet that he and his friends had fixed up with multiple plants, a lighting system, and a crank to move the platform up and down based on the plants’ needs. It was pretty impressive, to say the least. I mean, they were MIT engineers.

They would then dry it out and grind it up before filling a huge Chock full of ‘Nuts coffee can with their dirt weed for the taking. We sat down, got stoned, and started talking. This became my daily afternoon activity after working as a groundskeeper at an engineering firm before my evening job at Bloomingdales in Chestnut Hill a few times a week. Afterward, Fred would go for a run, and I would go to work.

By the end of the summer, we were best friends. A year later, we were a couple, and our conversation has continued for over forty years. Considering I am opening a cannabis dispensary, I figured the timing of telling this story is just perfect. It all goes back to the plant.