Bowling class. Tuesdays. 7:00 a.m. At a time in my life that I thought 7:00 only came around once a day. And it didn't have an "a.m." after it! But I needed a Physical Education credit and this provided it.
After orientation and a brief explanation of how to bowl (duh) with correct form (I actually didn't know) we were told to divide up into teams of three. The rest of the season we would be in competition. That meant each team must have a female/male mix.
I had few close friends in that early class and almost instantly they were on other teams. What should I do? Looking around to see who was there, I noticed her. Oh, I knew who she was. It was hard not to notice the cute, shy girl with the long, straight blonde hair as she walked across campus. We were also both natives of New Mexico, one state to the East.
But I was engaged. To someone else!
Oh. So was she.
So I got her attention and asked if she would like to be on a team with me. Our similar situations would take away any questions on the part of future spouses. She said, "Yes" and the semester of bowling got its start.
Something changed that fall. Not what you might think. What happened is that both of us ended up with broken engagements.
Looking back, I think we both wonder why we almost immediately started going out with other people. Part of it was that she was a good student, serious about her walk with God and full of self-discipline.
I was a goofball!
She tells me now that I fulfill one of the desires Anne Shirley had when thinking about a potential husband. She always wanted to marry a guy who could be bad!
Over they next few months on our small college campus, we flirted. I wrote her poems and told her they weren't personal. She became the bat girl of our intramural softball team. But I didn't ask her out.
I was afraid she would turn me down.
Finally, I got my courage up. After one of her friends told me that she would like to go out with me!
That first date with Cathy was 37 years ago this month.
........
I'm talking about marriage in church this weekend. If you are married, what attracted you to him/her?
7 comments:
Jeff and I met doing community theatre- we were cast as romantic leads in a play about ballroom dancing in the 50's. There is a scene where everyone is onstage- except us. It's a big reunion and our characters show up in ghostly form and dance and twirl around the stage. So we spent time back stage together each evening, waiting for our cue to waltz across.
I'd had a particularly bad day in relation to some difficult personal things in my life at that time. It was taking all of my energy to get through the evening. As we stood in dance position and waited for our cue, he pulled me in close, held me, swayed to the music, and sang in my ear, just under his breath.
We weren't even dating yet but I knew then that I loved him.
Larry owned a Harley!!!
What first attracted me to Andrew is that he's someone who really gets out and does things instead of just waiting for the world to happen.
What's kept us together is that we think about most things in a similar way (especially money, which I think is very important to living together successfully), and still being able to count the number of fights we've had on the fingers of one hand.
Liz, Cathy and I both loved your romantic story. Made me smile.
Chewy, so...is he bad or not?
Rachel, it's obvious you love to be out and about. It's great you found Andrew to go and do with.
He's as bad as he needs to be. But he loves his Lord, so he can't be TOO bad. Think I'll keep him for a while.
Right on, Chewy. I can almost hear the Harley rumble in the background!
This one is definitely one of my favorite posts you've done, and it's because the name Anne Shirley was included. I shall think of Cathy as a fellow kindred spirit from now on. And by the way, who knew you had a bit of "bad" in you?
The thing that drew me to Josh was his goofyness, indeed. I always fell for the (really!) bad boys and I guess by the time I met him I've had enough. I knew our futures were forever when he asked me "So, can I correspond with you?" I don't care who you are, if you don't fall for that in this day and age then there's something wrong with you. In a way, he was my own personal Mr. Darcy. He asked me that the first day we met at a wedding, where my big mouth that lacks a filter made him blush in front of 10 people. Did we ever tell you that we got married at the old Yuma courthouse a month after that day? Oh yes, his goofyness had me THAT wrapped around his finger.
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