Back in the dark ages, almost before the dawn of man...
Okay, not that far back. In the early 70s (that would be the 1970s) in the era of rock and roll, free love, miniskirts, vans, etc. There was a sweet-sixteen country girl - and I do mean sweet sixteen. The family made its bi-annual trek to the Southern state of the Dakotas. On the first day there, our young maiden -let's call her PollyAnna for fun - was walking downtown with her cousin. This town was so small that they had to share their one horse with a neighboring town. But I digress; anyway as they were walking by the local grain elevator she spotted a young man with long blonde hair. Her cousin introduced them and his first words to our PollyAnna were, "would you like a beer?" Somewhat taken aback by this cavalier attitude our sweet young thing politely stammered, “no, thank you.”
Fast forward two days and the couple met again at a twenty-fifth anniversary dance being held in honor of Aunt De and Uncle Arnie. He asked her to dance and she told him that she didn’t want to, but they went outside and talked for awhile.
A few days later he told her, “if you were 18 and I were 19 I would ask you to marry me.” She told him, “I would have to say no, I want my family to be together forever.” Now this was a new concept for our young man and so they had deep religious discussions that went something to the effect of, “but I couldn’t give up beer.”
She returned to her small town 1600 miles away and they wrote letters. They had agreed that it would be good for them to date other people. One day he sent her a letter breaking up with her. A month later he sent her his class ring. She went to prom with a local boy. They continued writing letters.
That summer her Aunt De and Uncle Arnie came to visit and she hitched a ride to that Northern Southern state. The funny thing is that her parents let her go. When she got there they started talking about everything and anything. It was as if they had always known each other and other than the differing opinions in religion everything was perfect. After two glorious weeks the vacation was over and back to the South she went.
In January, he caught a ride with another aunt and uncle who were making a trip to the South. After a few weeks, they were ready to leave and he asked her dad if he could come back and work on the farm. Within two weeks he had all of his earthly possesions loaded into his Chevy sedan and was on his way to his destiny.
He had already known that he would join her church, as he had received direction relating to this from his mother years before (even though she had died when he was nine).
That May she graduated from high school and they were married in the middle of September. Fourteen months later they had their first child, fourteen months after that their second was born. It is a good thing that they didn’t continue that way. Anyway when they were getting ready to have the first child, she was determined that it would be a boy, to protect his younger sister. He told her, no, they would have a girl, three boys and then another girl. Needless to say, that is exactly the way it happened.
Maybe not some peoples idea of a love story, but true, and the best kind, because so far they have lived happily ever after.
