Love story: Kay and Kevin Dixon found love worlds away from everyone else they knew
We met in a red-light district in Medellin, Colombia. Don’t get the wrong idea – we were in the Peace Corps. Kay was in Colombia III, I was part of Colombia IV and brought over to teach physical education and coach basketball.
Kay needed help setting up a sports program in the barrio, but my boss didn’t want me to go because Barrio Antioquia was the second-largest in South America at the time and it wasn’t exactly safe, but that’s what we did in the Peace Corps.
After two years, we returned to the United States. She moved to Washington, D.C. and kept in touch. I thought she was really smart, but we were just friends. No one in my circle of friends in Norwood, Massachusetts, could relate to what I had experienced as a Peace Corps volunteer. They had no clue what I was talking about.
Kay reached out when she had an interview in Boston, so I took her out to dinner at Durgin Park – a restaurant where they seat you all at one table, family style – and the guy she had interviewed with and told she didn’t have a boyfriend, ended up sitting at the same table. She didn’t get that job, but took a job working with the Job Corps in New Bedford while I went to graduate school. I visited her a few times, and apparently I got recognized on one of those trips to New Bedford, as she was working with someone who knew me from high school. Kay got tagged as “Kevin Dixon’s girl” and told me later, that was the end of anyone else asking her out! I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe there’s something there.”
That was 60 years ago (we celebrate our 60th anniversary this year.) Ever since that first adventure in the Peace Corps, Kay has been a part of every great thing that’s happened to me. I don’t know where I’d be without her. I certainly wouldn’t have had as interesting a life as I do. She’s my best friend, the mother of our four girls and one of the most intelligent women I know. Marrying Kay was one of the smartest things I ever did – relocating to Spokane in 2010 was another smart move – but that’s a story for another time. I am the luckiest guy in the world because she’s my partner.