Bagels, cream cheese and delightful changes, both big and small

Did you ever meet a friend or a partner who changed your whole life? It happened to me, and my life took a totally different course. This is great luck if it's a good and positive course. Well, mine was.

Looking back, I grew up in an era when American society was changing very rapidly, so it seems to me. Of course, every era has it's changing times.

But this was immediate post World War II, the 1950s and '60s. My father's family was in an essential business so they came through the war very well. Dad had been a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps, at Cimarron Field in Oklahoma, where new West Point pilot recruits were taught to fly. After the war, Dad went back to Minnesota with his new wife, Mom, and joined the family business.

Post World War II was the time of four-child (or more) families (I was number two of four in ours). It was a time of peace and prosperity for us; a nice time to grow up in a very protected setting.

Then came all the changes in the late '60s and 1970s. The world changed again for most of us, and especially for women.

Somehow I was thinking about all this the other day. Bagels and cream cheese and lox came to mind. In the 1950s and early '60s, Minnesota food was pretty simple, and pretty local and seasonal. So bagels were something new — a small but tasty change.

Of course, we had smoked salmon in Minnesota but not in this lox and bagels combination. And our smoked fish was usually whole or in filets.

There were also new restaurants serving Pacific Island food with pineapple in the dishes, and noodles, and little umbrellas in the fruit drinks (for children at these restaurants) and in cocktails for adults. All of this was very new to us in Minnesota. These were flavors the GIs brought back from the Pacific after the war. We learned names like tiki bar and Polynesian room.

In college I lived in the first coed dorm on campus, Middlebrook. That's where the bagels and cream cheese appeared to us. Baheej was teaching at University of Wisconsin in LaCrosse, and would come up to Middlebrook on weekends. Guests could also eat in the cafeteria, which was more like a restaurant, not the usual “dorm food.” Nice memories. So we always ate there — and loved the bagels. I was 22 when I met Baheej, and we had been together ever since.

The point is: Meeting my beloved Baheej was my biggest life-changing event. My life took a new path in so many ways: my course of study, family, travel, my career. Many times such meetings are by accident, totally unexpected. Ours was.

Life has so many twists and turns. I think it's worth reflecting on one's own personal history. Every one of us has a story. It gets one thinking about luck, fate, free will and destiny.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.