JACK AND ANN ARNOLD

32 ROCKY KNOLL

Remember the “Pool Guy” episode on ? The one where the pool-guy, Jerry’s self-professed “best friend,” HAD to squeeze in between Jerry and Kramer in theater even though they had purposely left one seat between them for buffer? For Jerry, that was the last straw that made him cut ties with the pool guy once and for all. But that was 1995, and the movie was Firestorm. For Jack and Ann, it was one year before that, and the movie was In the Name of the Father. At Edwards Island 7 Cinema. And THIS story has a happy ending.

On a Saturday evening in March of 1994, Ann (then) Lombardi was in a pensive mood. Her close friend had just passed away. Her happy childhood in Waterbury, Connecticut, seemed like a distant memory. Even moving to Orange County in her early 20’s because the soot from the factories and the wet, cold winters weren’t helping her asthmatic son. It was all starting to feel like a bad dream. She was in a good place then career-wise, having worked for Bank of America, moving up from an hourly teller all the way up to a corporate trainer, who trained bank/corporate officers all over the country. But what she needed on that particular evening was some peace and quiet. What better way was there to mourn a friend’s passing than to watch a movie about the IRA? She got to the theater early to get the best seat in the house. It was an academy award nominee and seats would be at a premium.

Jack Arnold sat down one seat away from her. She looked daggers at him. Surely he could find another seat somewhere else, she thought angrily. Jack responded with a big smile. When a couple came in looking for adjacent seats, he gladly offered his seat and moved next to Ann. Obviously, giving him filthy looks wasn’t going to get the message across; the best alternative was to ignore him, but Jack was persistent. At first, he asked general questions about the movie, to which she responded firmly that she knew nothing about it. 133 minutes later, however, they couldn’t stop talking about it. Movies starring Daniel Day-Lewis tend to have that effect on people. They decided to continue the conversation over coffee. Jack was a sharp dresser. And he treated the waiter right. They knew immediately that something special was happening.

Soon thereafter, Jack, an aerospace engineer with a BS and an MS from CalTech, who had worked on the Mariner missions to Mars as well as the Voyager mission, bought a unit in the Vistas and Ann moved in with him. Pieces of furniture they had acquired separately over the years all went together nicely. Two years later, Jack asked her to marry him and they set the date for September of 1997 but he had just begun consulting again and he needed insurance. Ann was about to retire from the bank and would have access to health insurance for life for herself and her spouse. Jack put the pieces together and picked up a wedding license on the way back from work one evening. The wedding at the courthouse took place on March 20, 1997. A beautiful wedding party at the Sherman Gardens in Corona Del Mar followed six months later, with about one hundred family and friends celebrating the blessing of the union to chamber music and big band music.

2007 marks the 10th wedding anniversary for the Arnolds, and they have celebrated it in style, traveling to England and Ireland. These days, when they are not helping out the community (they are both on the recently-revamped Social Committee), they remain extremely busy. Jack plays beautiful tunes on his piano, as he’s done for the past 50 years, or hauls his Canon EOS 20D everywhere to capture the beauties of the earth. Ann volunteers at the most beautiful of Southern California gardens as a master gardener. They have also managed the polling place at University High School at every election for 8 years as members of the Orange County Election Board.

Even to a photographer’s or a master gardener’s eyes, the Vistas appear breathtakingly beautiful. The Arnolds enjoy the immaculate landscaping as well as the tranquility of the community and take it all in every morning, enjoying breakfast outside. The convenient location of the Vistas also suits this couple of varied interests, with art museums and theaters only minutes away.

The Arnolds still enjoy watching movies, and yes, they still go to Edwards Island 7 Cinema. The biggest difference, though, is that they now enjoy sitting next to each other from the get-go, and that’s how things will remain between them for years to come.

(This interview was conducted in September 2007.)