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TIM: My name is Tim Hare and I’m from Easton, Pennsylvania.
EARL: And I’m Earl Hall and I’m also from Easton, Pennsylvania.
TIM: Our home is in Easton now for the past 25 years but we’ll probably both retire back here to New York City which was our first home together, and it’s always been a romantic place for us, and that’s why I think we’re both hoping to end up here again where we started our life together.
EARL: This was us, 33 years ago, actually.
TIM: Yes, 33 years ago. Our first Christmas together.
EARL: That’s me.
TIM: That’s you.
EARL: And that’s Tim.
TIM: Now you didn’t have hair then either, but I didn’t know it. For a year, he wouldn’t–
EARL: And your hair was not white and you didn’t wear white glasses, but things have changed over time…
TIM: That’s right, dear.
EARL: That’s us.
TIM: I had seen Earl three months before we met at another place in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I knew as soon as I saw him, there he is, there’s the guy for me, that I want to spend the rest of my life with. But I didn’t introduce myself, I wanted him to remain a fantasy because I had been dating a lot of turkeys and I thought he’ll just be another turkey, and I was planning to move to New York in a few months so, no, I’ll just live with the fantasy, but that is the guy for me. Three months later, I was in New Jersey, coincidentally, in a place, and Earl walked in and I said to a friend that took me there, and I said, “There he is, there’s the guy I saw a few months ago.” He said, “Well ask him to dance.” I said, “Well, no, no I’m moving to New York soon and I don’t want to get involved with another turkey, sorry, I’ll wait and get involved with turkeys in New York City.”
So it was last call, Donna Summers’, “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”, and so I said, okay, it won’t kill me, I’ll ask him to dance, and we danced.
EARL: And I was kind of shy at the time–reserved, passive–and so when he asked me to dance, of course, well, when I saw him come in the room, I thought, wow, I said to my friends, “Look at that guy! He is gorgeous!” But I had a little bit of a low self-esteem back in those days, I thought, well… So when he asked me to dance, I was very passive, and when he asked me to dance a second time, I got a little more interested, so then eventually we did go to your apartment, which was an art studio he had in Pennsylvania, and again, we’ve been together ever since. And I was surprised that as an artist he didn’t have a lot of food and he was living very simply, so the next day I showed up in my Volkswagen with food and dishes. I set up his kitchen, I cooked him dinner, they say “the way to a man’s heart is to his stomach”, maybe that helped, but many chickens and roasts later, here we are, still together, and so, it’s been great.
And I can say, we’re very much in love.
This is AMAZING. I loooove this story. I distinctly remember being younger and wanting desperately to hear about gay couples who had been together for a long time. Ten years ago this video would have blown my mind, just finding out that something like that was possible.
Thank you both so so so much for sharing this story.
What an adorable story! How wonderful to hear about your love story! Thank you!
This is such a touching story, and a heartfelt reminder to all that sometimes a little patience mixed with a little risk taking is all you need to really find someone you love
gives me hope that mr. right will walk into my life someday
Love the picture of your first Christmas together ! Awesome !