ANAHEIM : True Love Is Better Late Than Never

When Bill Hitchcock was a sophomore in high school, his best friend wrote in his yearbook: “I hope you get up nerve to ask Marcia what I told you.”

Hitchcock never was brave enough to ask Marcia Bruehl if she liked him back in the late 1950s, when they attended Blue Island Community High School on the South Side of Chicago.

But he did manage to summon the courage to ask her an even more significant question 37 years later--and she said yes.

Hitchcock, who now lives in Anaheim, tracked down a phone number for the girl he couldn’t forget and who was now living in Noblesville, Ind.

After spending two to five hours on the phone every day for two months, Hitchcock and Bruehl, now Marcia Richards, decided they should meet in person.

“I was nervous when she came here, worried that there might not be any chemistry between us,” Hitchcock said. “To break the ice, I wore a fake nose and glasses at the airport to pick her up, and she walked right up to me and said ‘Hi, Bill.’ ”

They are engaged to be married in July.

Hitchcock’s family moved from Chicago to San Clemente after his junior year in high school. Despite having a major league crush on Richards, Hitchcock never told her he was moving and never said goodby.

“I was just too damn shy,” Hitchcock said. “I felt so intimidated by her.”

The two had met while taking a make-up geometry exam. Even though Hitchcock thought the 16-year-old daughter of a minister acted interested in him, he couldn’t really believe it.

“She was popular, her dad was a respected man in town, and she was a better student than me,” Hitchcock said. “But most of all, she could drive and I couldn’t.”

Their one date together during their sophomore year was a disaster, Hitchcock said.

“I finally got the nerve to ask her to a high school basketball game,” he said. “My dad drove us, and when I got in the car I saw my younger brother and sister were coming, too. I was humiliated.”

During the game, Hitchcock said, he was too shy to talk much to his date, and was tongue-tied when she would attempt conversation. Although he never even held her hand, Hitchcock said he never forgot her.

“I remembered that she liked cream soda, and I have never had a cream soda since without being reminded if her,” Hitchcock said.

To make sure his fiancee thinks of him when she drinks cream soda, he sent her a case of the beverage when she graduated from Ball State University last month.

After the wedding, the two, now both 52, plan to drive to Chicago to re-enact a scene he has played over and over in his mind for the last 37 years.

“We’re going to walk from the high school to her house,” Hitchcock said. “And this time, I am going to hold her hand.”