Laura & David Gehrenbeck ’91

I was a sweet summer child in October of freshman year (1987). With very wet hair and waning energy after evening swim practice, I had dragged myself up the hill from Ware Pool to Sharples. My roommate — the magical and radiant Mikala Woodward ’91 — introduced me to her friend as he was leaving the dining hall and I was trying to lift my fork. I thought, “Oh my goodness… he looks like someone I could really snuggle with.” Apparently he thought, “She has really poor posture.” Well, impression made.

One chance meeting at the Old Club, one Monty Python Film Festival, and one epic night of dancing at the fall formal later, our fate together had been sealed. He spent his junior year in Moscow. I spent a junior semester in Grenoble. We married a month after he returned to become that weird married couple during our senior year. Thirty-two years of wedded delight, many jobs, three kids, two dogs, seven countries, and one terrible separation (ongoing) due to war in Ukraine and we still burn like freshly struck matches.

Thank you, Quaker Matchbox for making me eat my words. 

(Special acknowledgment to Cygus Vanni for excellence in roommate-matching.)