How a Newport Beach couple met through a 1990 personal ad in the Daily Pilot

In 1990, Penny Baskin decided she wanted to get married.

She was 38, owned her own business and felt she was ready to find someone to spend her life with. It was before the internet, computers and cellphones made romantic connections easy, she said, laughing over a phone call early Thursday evening. The only effective “dating thing” that existed at the time was the personal ads section in the Daily Pilot.

So, she bought an ad. It was no more than 2 square inches in size, she said, and it ran in November.

“True Calif girl. 5’9” Wonderful cook, loves skiing, scuba, fishing, camping, black tie & dancing. Wants happy secure, nonsmoking, women’s man, 35-45, to enjoy long term happiness,” the ad read. It was enough to make John Fleming pick up the phone.

Penny Fleming posted a personal ad in the Daily Pilot in 1990. She had it laminated as a keepsake.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

Just before Thanksgiving, he remembers.

But after Halloween, Penny chimed in. It all happened pretty quickly.

John said he doesn’t remember exactly why he answered the ad, but he was single at the time and was interested. He called the Daily Pilot office and managed to get Penny’s phone number so he could leave a message on her answering machine: “Hi, this is John. Give me a call.”

It was the simplicity of his message that made Penny call him back. Six others had answered, but they talked about their work, and Penny said they didn’t sound very exciting. The two went out to dinner at Trees, a restaurant since closed that was behind the New Port Theater in Corona del Mar.

The rest, John says, is history.

When the two met, they came without baggage, they explained on Thursday. Neither had been married nor had any children. As their relationship developed, he said he liked her blond hair, her cooking and outgoing personality. For Penny, it was a matter of how well John looked after his mother.

A photo of John and Penny Fleming taken in 1991 on their honeymoon.

(Courtesy of John and Penny Fleming)

Penny said she was recently reminded of the story of how they met when she was cleaning out her wallet and found the old ad she had laminated as a keepsake. She said things were simpler back when she and John met, and dating is different now.

The two married at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church on April 27, 1991, and are approaching their 30th anniversary. They have no big plans to travel in light of the pandemic. Penny said they might have a nice dinner with their two children, Michael and Annie, who were brought up in Newport Beach.

John is 82 now and Penny is 68. It may seem like a bit of an age gap, but Penny said she didn’t think to ask how old John was when they met because she thought he was adorable.

“He still is,” she adds, cheerfully.

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