My parents met in a Catholic youth group. When he phoned to ask her out, she said yes because she thought he was someone else. On their first date a bird shat on my dad.
They had their 35th last month.
However my story pales in comparison to my best friend’s.
Her parents came from very wealthy Asian families, and their marriage was arranged from the time they were toddlers. Then when they were teenagers (who still hadn’t met each other), her maternal grandmother died and the woman her grandfather then married squandered the family fortune, so the marriage was called off. But they decided just out of curiosity that they wanted to meet just to see what the person they’d been engaged to all their lives was like.
They eloped three weeks later. And they’re still married as well.
My mom had a crush on me and Biff was about to kick my ass and boy howdy, you wouldn’t believe the shenanigans that ensued trying to get my mom to fall in love with my dad, who was a total geek.
Wait a minute, that wasn’t me, that was Michael J. Fox. (DAMMIT!! How many times can I make that mistake? I keep telling myself “He’s the short one”. DAMMIT!)
Wait another minute, that wasn’t even real life. That was in Back to the Future.
Dad fell in love with the cute little Scottish girl, but she was kind of a flirt and just thought of him as her best friend. She dated lots of more dashing and “cooler” guys, but always ended up breaking up with them and meeting dad at the soda fountain to discuss how much less than wonderful they were. She said that one day she was hit with the blinding realization that the reason she couldn’t find Mr. Right was that he was under her parent’s car, changing the oil! (Dad was always around their house, doing things for everyone.) She always said that she thought that God must have knocked some sense into her the night before in her sleep.
We lost my mom just shy of their 58th wedding anniversary. I have never seen two people so completely connected and in love-and yet at the same time so individual.
I do believe my parents met in a disco. My mom in an appropriate dress, and my dad in a white lounge suit, with bell-bottoms, and shoes with big heals. Or something like that.
I think it was around 1939, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Mom was engaged to Frank, who decided she needed to grow up a bit. So he moved to Florida. I guess he thought his absence would spurt some maturation hormone in her. Instead, she met Ed (the son of a preacher man and our future Dad) at a Finn Hall dance. Other hormones engaged.
Dad died after 3 children and 39 years of marriage. They were very happy together. They rarely argued and during one episode, my brother, who was in his 30’s at the time, was afraid they’d get a divorce. The argument was basically a few sworn words and maybe a door or two slammed.
In September of 1970, my mother was a sophomore at Smith college, which was (and is) all women. She and a friend had taken a bus down to New Haven, CT for a dance at Yale. The friend found some guy to hook up with, which left mom stranded in a strange city a good two hours from her school. She sat on a stone wall on a street corner.
My dad was a sophomore at Yale, and was sitting on this same stone wall several feet away. He had been drinking just a bit, which helped clear up his usually extreme shyness. He saw a cute girl with nice legs on the wall, so he moved over and started chatting with her.
My mother had moved away from home when she was 16. She ended up living with friends for a couple years. One of these friends was into CB radios. I guess he was talking to this guy over the radio who happened to be in town, so he invited the guy over for coffee. The guy (my father) was smitten with my mother, although it took a couple days for her to realize she found him interesting too. My dad proposed two weeks later and they were married four months after that. She was 18, he was 28. They had their 25th aniversary a couple months ago.
My parents lived on the same street all their lives. My paternal grandfather’s house was on one corner next to an alley and my maternal grandmother’s was on the other side of the street about, oh, 5 houses or so down. My mom always tells me the first time my dad really started to take interest was the time he was on the roof and he spotted her walking down the street and almost fell off.
She was dating someone else and got pregnant by him. My dad was going off to enlist in the Army. He ended up marrying her 5 days before my oldest sister was born. I always admired him for that, marrying a woman and loving her even though she was pregnant with another man’s baby.
They just celebrated their 30th on Jan 5th Sure they fight, but they always make up and they care very deeply about each other. I only hope I’m so lucky one day
Heeeeellllooooo??? McFly??? Anybody in there? Why don’t you make like a tree, and get out of here?
That was about as funny as a screen door on a destroyer.
My mother was a very naive german girl who did not speak a word of english and my dad was an american soldier who spoke no german. He went to a local german bar where my mom also happened to be. Somehow they fell in love and within a few months he married her and brought her back to Texas. They were able to stand each other for 13 years before they divorced.
My mother was a DJ at a small radio station in Ohio, and was out at a shopping center doing some sort of promotion or on-location broadcast. My father saw her there, and asked her for a date.
My father, big romantic that he is, had something very special planned for this first date: they drove out to a state park, and my mother watched while he waxed his car.
What was he thinking? What was she thinking for going out on another date with him?
My parents knew each other as kids. My grandmothers wer college roommates, and they kept in touch as their kids grew. My mother was dating my uncle first, but my father prevailed through persistence.
My parents knew each other as kids. My grandmothers wer college roommates, and they kept in touch as their kids grew. My mother was dating my uncle first, but my father prevailed through persistence.
My dad was an officer in the Army and was stationed at Fort Sill. He says that when the wind was just right, one could smell the beautiful women who attended Chickasha College, just northeast up the highway.
One night he decided to go check the college out for himself. He went into the first dorm that he found and there he met my mother on her 18th birthday. My father was 26, but lied to her and said he was only 22. He asked her for a date the following Saturday, said he’d take her for a drive around the lake in his ole green chevy. She said yes. He showed up at the dorm on Saturday in his beautiful green Corvette, wearing black leather driving gloves. The “drive around the lake” ended up being a fly around the lake in a small plane.
What a badass.
They got married on my dad’s 28th birthday. January 5th will be their 33rd anniversary.
My godparents and how they met is a nice little story.
My Godfather worked for the FBI and was stationed/whatever in Florida in 1945ish ( maybe later).
His best friend from high school/college telegrammed him asking him to be in his wedding back in Michigan. Godfather telegrammed him back stating he didn’t have enough time to drive back and couldn’t afford the $400 airfare. ( air travel was a luxury back then. A monthly wage was maybe $75 -100.)
Best friend telegrams him back stating that “Frances So-And So” will be there. Frances was the brides best friend and matron of honor and knew that he’d always had a thing for Frances.
Godfather flew back home for the wedding and fell in love with her. Flew back to Florida, corresponding, as he was too broke to send telegrams and proposed through the mail and came home for the wedding. They’ve been married 53 years.
He has given her a dozen roses every week during those years. (And he has yet to complete a honey-do list)
My youngest daughter just read the account I posted of her grandparents’ meeting (the story is familiar to her; she just wanted to see what I had written about it).
She informed me I got the year wrong, and she is right, it was 1952, not 1953.
She also wanted me to add that Gramma was engaged to someone else at the time she became engaged to Grampa.
And my mother’s twin sister told her to keep the money Dad sent her for the bus to Sioux Falls, but not to show up, because she thought it was pretty weird that a guy would propose the same day he met her. Of course she did go to Sioux Falls, and that’s why I’m here to tell the tale.
I think it was in 1952, I will get the exact date later when I call my Mom.
My mother and a friend of hers who was considered pretty wild for that time frame were walking to town when a car full of guys from the nearby Air Force base pulled up and asked them to get in. My Mom didn’t want to, but her friend said she knew those guys and it was safe, so they hopped in. Turns out that her friend didn’t know them and lied because she thought they were cute and knew my Mom wouldn’t ride with strangers. One of them was my father. Oddly enough, my Mom had heard of my Dad before they met, but didn’t realize it until they had gone out a couple of times - he was known around town as ‘The Witch Doctor’ because of his willingness to pick up and play with ‘creepy’ creatures like scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes and because of his skill with a home-made blowgun he had.
Sure they fight, but they always make up and they care very deeply about each other. I only hope I’m so lucky one day