By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
December 19, 1999
Just one look was all it took.
Elynne Chaplik Aleskow was dancing at a club when she noticed a man shyly peering at her. Richard Aleskow, who had caught sight of her on his way out, couldn’t stop staring.
“It was such a cliche,” says Elynne, assistant professor of communications at Wright College. “I literally saw him from across a darkened room. He was smiling and looked so sweet standing there.”
Ironically, Richard hadn’t even wanted to go to the club. It was 1987, and he preferred classical music to the pop music of the time.
“My friends dragged me out,” says Richard, a broker in the insurance industry. “I’m not really a dancer and had no interest in going to a dance club. I hate those places. They’re for the hearing-impaired. After about 10 minutes I wanted to leave, but my friends convinced me to stick around.
“I saw Elynne and could tell that she was a happy person. I had to meet her. . . . She was motioning to me that she would be with me in a moment. At the end of the dance, she came over and we started talking. And we found out that we had so much in common.”
They talked for about an hour that night. Richard walked Elynne to her car and asked for her number. To his surprise, rather than getting a work number, he received her home number.
“I had no hesitation about doing that,” Elynne says. “I had dated quite a bit in my life, but there was something about him that I really liked. He seemed so real and sincere and down to earth. There was a genuine comfort level there as well, and I just followed my instincts.”
When she got home, there was a message from Richard saying that he hoped she got home safely. He said if she liked, she could call him back.
Elynne called him that night.
“We met on a Sunday,” she remembers. “At the time, his mother lived about two blocks away from where I live. So he mentioned that he’d be visiting with her on Tuesday, and would I like to take a walk with him that night. We did, and it was wonderful.
“We got together again on Wednesday. And Thursday . . . and so on. Then he asked me if I was available to accompany him to all the Chicago Symphony concerts for the season. That scared me a little bit. I had never been married, and I had grown accustomed to being single. But again, I went with my instincts.”
Two years later, the Chicago-based couple married. Richard, 62, and Elynne, 54, celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary in June.
They still go on dates to the CSO together and enjoy taking long walks.
