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BY STEPHANIE BOMBAY sbombay@leader.net
Tuesday, February 08, 2000 Page: 6
High-school sweethearts, entrepreneurs still in business of romance
Dan Friedman spent the first 10 years of his life on Chrisman Street in Forty
Fort. When he moved to Kingston, he left his childhood home and his future
wife, only he did not know it at the time. Living on the same street, just a
few houses down, was a little girl named Paulette George. Though just a few
hundred feet apart, the two did not meet, and it would take time and
coincidence to bring them together. In the summer of 1967, Paulette
remembers, she was cruising with some friends. “We did it when it was
legal,” she joked. At the time, she was approaching her junior year at
Wyoming Valley West High School. That summer evening she met Dan, a
soon-to-be senior at the same school. The two began talking and decided to go
on a date, the circumstances of which are foggy in the couple’s mind. “Well,
let’s see. We could debate that one,” Dan said with a laugh while he sat with
Paulette in an office off the storage room at P&D Pet Supply, their Fairview
Township business. “He thought it was horseback riding, and I thought it was
dinner,” Paulette said. Either way, the couple grew closer during Dan’s last
year at Wyoming Valley West. They went to football games and movies, went
horseback riding and shared dinners. They continued their courtship at the
Pennsylvania State University in State College. They did break up for short
while once Paulette began attending the university, but it did not take long
for them to realize the error of their ways. “I recognized I had a good
thing from the beginning,” Dan said. “We realized that what we had was so
much better than what was out there.” Dan, now 49, and Paulette, 48, will
celebrate their 28th anniversary on March 18. In addition to moving from the
Wyoming Valley to Wright Township in 1974 and to Dorrance Township in 1998,
the Friedmans have experienced many changes over the years. They became
parents on Nov. 24, 1976, when daughter Keri was born, and again on Aug. 15,
1980, when son Marc came along. The family celebrated Marc’s 14th birthday in
an atypical fashion: They opened their Fairview Township business. Now the
couple spends 30 hours a week together at the store. “Working together has
proven we love each other,” Dan said. Paulette added that spending so much
time together can test patience and tolerance. “If you’re really in love,
you’re more tolerant,” she said. Dan thinks couples are too quick to give up
on marriage at the first sign of trouble, noting “We’re in it for the long
haul.” “I was thinking the exact same thing,” Paulette said. “I was going
to say that.” Marriage is not always a bed of roses, the Friedmans say,
adding, though, that arguing is an important factor in any relationship. The
key is to try to talk things out. Dan and Paulette try to work as a team,
using their strengths. Dan is able to look down the road and keep his eye on
a goal, while Paulette pays attention to the details along the way. “He gets
to where he wants to go,” Paulette said of her husband, and that is one thing
she cherishes about him. “What I love and admire most is his great
determination. I look and think, `This is impossible,’ and he’ll do it,” she
said. “If it’s something he wants to do, he’ll do it.” And what does Dan
love most about Paulette? “Her intellect. She’s bright and energetic,” he
said. “Paulette is very sharp.” Dan and Paulette warn young couples not to
marry with the expectation that the other will change for them, and they
remind newlyweds to be patient. “People say the term is communication,” Dan
said. “But it’s more than that. It’s dealing with frustrations before they
become too big.” Marriage is definitely a give-and-take relationship,”
Paulette added. “Sometimes it’s more giving than taking. And no marriage is
100 percent perfect. There is no such animal.”