High-School Sweethearts Reunited

Feb. 13 -- When Rick Gabe and Sandi Allen started dating, Stevie Wonder was topping the charts, Jimmy Carter had just been elected president, and the nation was in full bicentennial swing.

The year was 1976, and Rick and Sandi were high-school sweethearts in the Los Angeles area. He had a slick James Dean haircut, and a love of Motown and muscle cars. She was the girl next door, with a shy smile and a wild streak.

Their first kiss was at Sandi's brother's house, with music playing on the jukebox. Rick gave Sandi one of his favorite 45s, Smokey Robinson's "Baby, Baby Don't Cry," and signed it with his name.

The couple dated for a while, but then went their separate ways. They would not see each other again for 27 years — until last month.

Separate Ways, Separate Lives

Within a year of their break-up, Sandi was married to another man. They ended up having two children and moving to Las Vegas, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1995. Sandi, now Sandi Mierow, says the 13-year marriage was "pretty tough."

By then, Rick was living in Tennessee managing a muffler shop. He had been married twice and had four children, but both marriages ended in divorce. Part of the reason, he says, is he never felt the same spark with anyone that he had had with Sandi. "I'd like to have a wife one day where that was there," he said.

Searching For Each Other

All along, Sandi had kept the record Rick had given her. After her divorce, she decided to see if she could find him. Her first few efforts met with no luck, but then her teenagers Jason and April joined the hunt. The teens helped their mother sign up on a Web site that reconnects lost friends and lovers, MyFamily.com.

The Web site came up with 38 matches for "Richard Gabe." The site's staff sifted through them until one day Sandi got the call she had been waiting for. "We found him,!" the Web site's staff told her. "We've spoken to him. And he is so excited — and he's single!"

It turned out that Rick had been searching for Sandi at the same time she was searching for him. "Miracles happen," said Sandi's son Jason.