The Real Story Behind My Marriage

It has been a while since I wrote. I apologize. I went to Laughlin, Nevada, for an anniversary weekend with my lovely wife. Notice there are no quotation marks around lovely, because she truly is that. In all aspects, she is really a beautiful person. Afterall, who could put up with me for 34+ years and still have such a sunny disposition?

Not many know the story about how I met her. We were both students at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois back in the 1970s. Well, she was. I had quit to try and become a broadcaster in Roswell, New Mexico, but was going to return to EC after a failed attempt at the real world outside of college life.

I went to campus the week before school was out there in May of 1973 and went to a party where I spied this gorgeous brunette wearing a pair of hip huggers that swished when she walked and mesmerized me. She also had hair so long that she could sit on it and that made her seem Godiva-like. I talked her into leaving the party for the evening, and her boyfriend who was drunk, and we went for a slow ride on a fast motorcycle around the lake. We were two crazy kids getting to know each other. I dropped her back off at her dorm and promised to meet her at breakfast.

The following morning, I was getting ready to bike it out and back home, and I stopped at the mess hall to see her. She was sitting with her boyfriend. We exchanged pleasantries and I eventually had to get on the road. As I was leaving, I turned to him and said, "You better treat her right, or she is going to be mine in the fall." Little did I know how prophetic that was.

During the summer, Dorothy and I exchanged letters, and finally she told me that she and her boyfriend had broken up. I rode my Honda 750 immediately up north to Des Plaines, braving the dreaded TriState Tollway to see her. Her parents and I hit it off well, and they invited me to stay with them for the weekend. By the time Dorothy and I returned to campus in the fall, we were pretty tight. I knew she was the one for me, but I had not asked her yet for her hand.

One night in October, while we were sitting in my room, I asked her to marry me. Shockingly, she said she would have to think about it! I was crushed; at least for about 20 minutes. When she said, "Yes." I asked her, "Yes, What?" And she hit me and said she would marry me.

So, on Parent's weekend, dressed as the Eureka College Red Devil (makeup and all), I asked permission of her parents to marry her. They grudgingly agreed since I told them that being a devil was not my intention for the rest of my life, but rather becoming a teacher was.

The next weekend, we went home to Hoopeston to tell my mother. As we were sitting at dinner in the Pizza King there on Route 1, I noticed smoke around the lights and people milling around outside of the building. As I went to open the door, flames shot in. We were the only customers in the place and there were only about four people working, so we scurried out the back door. As Dorothy, Mom and I got around to the front, the ceiling of the restaurant collapsed. I knew then that Dorothy and I were made to be together.

I tell this story to let you know that our relationship started out hot and remains so, thirty-six years later! Marriage is full of little problems, but we avoided the big one...not getting together at all.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

Doughnut