Remember When

Today I had planned on writing about our recently completed family vacation to Florida for a ride on the amazing Disney Dream Cruise Ship. Then I looked at the calendar and realized that today is the 4th of June and I had something else that I needed to write about. June 4, 1971 Carol agreed to go out with me on our first date. We went to see the movie Ryan's Daughter. I will confess that I remember nothing of the movie and have never attempted to watch it again. I just remember sitting in the West Theater in downtown Galesburg sitting in the dark holding the hand of the most beautiful girl I knew. If you know me then you know I had a hundred worries in my head. Is my hand to sweaty? Do I have bad breath? What if I pass gas? What if I say something stupid or rude? Damn this is  a long movie. I've got to be home by 10:30. Wonder if I should try to kiss her when I take her back home. Well 41 years later I guess you could say the date went ok. The closest picture I could lay my hands on today this one taken in the summer of 1974.

I think it was taken at her birth parents home in Lexington, Kentucky.  Based on my photograph it is clear I was quite smitten with this woman.

Please note the matching shirt. She had me dressing like her at this point. I should have known how hopelessly in love I was.  I guess I couldn't pull off the white pants so I got  to wear jeans. By the way on that trip I didn't get to pull off her white  pants either.



The last photograph is our engagement picture. I was lucky to get her to consent to be my wife. While there have been many ups and downs over the years we have stayed together and chosen to remember the good times and forget the bad. I could not have asked for a better friend, wife, mother of our children, and the hundred other things she is to me every day. I just look at these pictures now and DAMN we were YOUNG back then. When I close my eyes that is still the girl I see in my dreams.