How We Met: Narrative

 I was about 14 or 15, and I remember meeting my friend Tom’s older brothers Dave and Harry  at church.  I was with my friend Hilda who was infatuated with Dave.  They went to high school together and she undoubtedly knew that he was Senior Class President, but all I saw was a very good looking young man who looked right through us as if we were beneath him.  The oldest brother, Harry, made eye contact and didn’t seem as unapproachable.

Going to the same church, our paths crossed many times.  I even picked Tom up at his home several times to go to MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship).  But, Dave only remembers my car—a Studebaker that my dad had bought from a neighbor who had totaled it. In retrospect, it was a car that would grab a car-lover’s attention and Dave (like a couple of grandsons) is a car-lover.  

It was about a 1956 Studebaker President that my dad made drivable by wiring  the hood down.  Back in the 1960’s, a trip to the gas station, meant the attendant also opened the hood to check your water and oil.  I was always a little embarrassed but also a little amused when the attendant would try to open it, realize it was held down with a wire and had to try to unwind the wire to get to the engine.  (as another aside, the wire on the hood snapped while I was driving it from my grandparent’s house with the hood folding  over the windshield, making driving hazardous—so I had to move on to another used car, but back to the story. . . .)

Dave went away to college; I went away to college.  Our paths didn’t cross again until we had graduated,  were working and living in the same apartment complex, Whisper Lake.  My sister’s husband was in Viet Nam, so she and I decided to rent an apartment together at Whisper Lake. We lived across the hall from my high school and college friends Margie and Kathy.   I was teaching at McCluer High School with Mary,  Mary along with Arlene were also living at Whisper Lake. Arlene and Mary started having parties inviting many of the single people living there. 

Dave was also living at Whisper Lake apartments and knew Mary and Arlene from high school .  Our paths crossed again at Whisper Lake parties.   I knew who he was, but he never remembered having met before even when, Mary and Dave doubled with me and a date!   In addition to the Whisper Lake group, I belonged to the University Club—a social club of college graduates who partied together at various locations around St. Louis.  Several of us were going to University Club one Friday night.  I had  asked Mary if she wanted to go, but she said she thought she and Dave were going to do something.

I was shocked later that evening to see Dave at the University Club with a friend—I was very angry that he was standing Mary up. His arrogance was more than I could tolerate.  It was one thing to never recognize me, but quite another to have so little regard for Mary.  His friend Elliott must have noticed me looking in their direction because before I knew it, Dave was asking me to dance.  

Stunned, I agreed to dance with him.  I could tell by the conversation he was trying to have with me that he did not remember ever meeting me before: not when we were teenagers, not when we went to the same apartment parties, not when we doubled together.  After the dance was over, he escorted me back to my table and I angrily confronted him with his having stood Mary up that night.  His eyes looked at me, possibly in recognition but more likely stunned that I knew him. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Mary you saw me.”  I responded with, “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.” He never forgot me after that night.

That Whisper Lake group evolved into a wonderful group of friends who travelled together, went to the theater and concerts together, partied on the houseboat belonging to Arlene’s parents, skied, camped and went on canoe trips together.  Gradually i warmed up to Dave, realizing he wasn’t being “stuck up”, but was just an introvert who didn’t recall people’s faces or names as well as I do.

I was late arriving at one of our canoe trips in September.  They had already been out canoeing and one group was drying off by the fire on that crisp evening. Apparently Dave’s canoe with several of the females had tipped over getting them all wet.  For some reason, the ladies all seemed to be shunning him—my heart cracked open seeing him so forlorn.  So, the next day, when all of the others refused to get in a canoe with him, I volunteered.  That canoe float was the beginning. . . . 

How We Met: Poem

Giddy 14 year old 

Meeting  friend’s older brother—Dave,

Easter Sunday at church—

     Looks right over my head

     So handsome, so stuck-up

Invisible

Silly 16 year old

Picking up Dave’s brother for youth group

In my Studebaker rattletrap.

     Never looks up from his chair

     So handsome, so beyond me

Invisible

 “Mature” 22 year old

Living in Whisper Lake Apartments

Dave, Senior Class President, 17

Introduced at a party there.

    Sipping his scotch, no recognition

    So handsome, so arrogant

Invisible

Disinterested 22.5 year old

Double dating with my friend Mary . . .and Dave

      Four of us:  movies and drinks 

      So handsome, so indifferent

Invisible

Confident 23 year old

Asked Mary to join me at a party

She “has a date”—Dave.

He walks into the party without her,

       Sees me glaring at him,

       Asks me to dance.

       So handsome, so clueless

Invisible

When the music stops. . . .

 Eyes flashing, voice trembling in anger,

“Aren’t you supposed to be with Mary?”

Me, Goofball,14

His friend is amused, I am not.

     Shifting from foot to foot,

     He looks at me. His eyes widen in disbelief

     “Don’t tell her you saw me here”.

     “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t”.

He sees me.

Our children ask,

      “How did you and Dad meet?”

“At church”

Thanks to Bill Tucker for "Invisible" when I told the story.

Summer Solstice

Soft summer breezes 

Greet me as I find my seat.

The shadows and filtered light flirt.

The orange day lily shines in a spotlight

Before the light shifts and spots a cardinal

Hiding behind a curtain of leaves.

Squirrels leap across the stage 

To the flute-like trills of birds.

A chorus of trees gently swish their skirts in unison

As another squirrel darts in and out  like

A ballerina weaving among the branches.

Closing my eyes I hear a symphony of sounds:

The slow drum rolls of trash cans rattling to the curb,

The bass rumble of a truck in the distance.

Mosquito-playing  violins

Remind me that summer has arrived.

I sit back and enjoy the summer solstice:

A gentle overture

Before the blaring heat of summer.

Fading

Fading…

Fading…

Like jeans becoming softer, paler, less rigid with age.

Fading…

Like the sky at sunset  with that brief burst of color before darkness.

Fading…

Like the peppermint taste lingering after the candy is gone.

Fading…

Like the scent of cinnamon rolls as I scurry by the bakery.

Fading. . . 

Like a fire’s blazing fury becoming the soft warm glow of embers.

Fading…

Like the words in a book swimming across a page without my glasses.

Fading…

Like the sound of laughter; when the words aren’t clear but the joy is still heard.

              .

Fading…

Like technicolor memories of loved ones turning into fuzzy, black and white snapshots.

Fading…

Like the dance steps in Zumba becoming the slow rhythmic steps of a “Senior” class.

Fading…

Like a movie changing scenes from a dance party to the ocean in moonlight.

Fading…

Like a plane taking off with passengers ready for adventure.

Fading into a new adventure: soft, sweet, warm, joyful, but a slower rhythm.

Travel to Germany in 1960's

My father, Legion Post members
and I

Although I’d travelled by train, car and bus many times, I had never been on an airplane until I was 20 years old.  Having been selected to be an exchange “student” in Memmingen, Germany, an airplane was about the only way to get there.

Since I’d never flown before, I dressed like I’d seen women dress in the ads.  Although it was August, I wore a light-weight blue flowered cotton suit, stockings, heels, white gloves with a hat that reminded me of a stewardesses hat--high crown with a small brim. I was having most of my clothes shipped in a trunk so was able to travel with just one suitcase and my carry-on.

My parents often struggled financially for me to go to college, much less for me to live in Germany for a year.  Fortunately my father’s American Legion Post, came up with a scholarship to pay for my travel, and I became their “Ambassador”.  Once settled in Memmingen, I was to be paid a small salary by the Bavarian government for teaching English in the local high schools.  Previous “exchange students” had already graduated from college, so they were eligible for Fulbright Scholarships to travel to Munich for study in addition to their duties in Memmingen.  Since I hadn’t graduated yet, I was to stay in Memmingen and had expanded teaching roles.

This exchange had been set up by the publisher of the Memmingen newspaper.  He had been to Cape Girardeau on a trip and arranged with the college there to create this exchange program.  One student from SEMO would go to Germany and one university student from Memmingen would go to Cape.  I’d been acquainted with several of the students at SEMO and one of them helped with my arrangements once I got there——Uli had several friends who would welcome me.  I would stay at the Mädchen Wohnheim, a boarding house for young women and girls on Rheineckstrasse.

But, I needed to find the least expensive way for me to get to Memmingen, Germany (my future home for a year).  Flying to New York City was fairly easy—TWA to Idlewild Airport.  But from there, I needed to get to LaGuardia for my flight overseas on Icelandic Airlines! A New York taxi got me to the right terminal.  All I really recall was sitting at a counter waiting for my flight and having a cup of coffee—relieved that I’d made it to the right terminal.  

Shortly after we were airborne on Icelandic, we were served dinner followed by my first legal alcoholic beverage—a liqueur  that burned all the way down. By myself, on an airplane, drinking something I didn’t like—not quite a celebration.   Icelandic Airlines at that time was a prop plane so we had to land in Reykjavik to refuel.  My excitement at landing in my first foreign country, was replaced by fear that we were going to crash land——Iceland has very few trees and it was hard to judge how high we were.  I closed my eyes and began praying.  After a few minutes, we landed safely.  I looked around and saw there were no trees, accounting for my mis-judgement.  I disembarked from the plane went into the airport for short time before again getting on the plane to fly to Luxembourg.

We arrived in Luxembourg in darkness. I had lost one whole day already.  There was no train connecting Luxembourg with Munich, so we had to take a bus to the train station in Germany.  Because so many of us were in our teens and early twenties, it was a riotous ride with lots of laughter and jokes and many of us trying out our limited German on each other.  One female in the back of the bus yelled up to the bus driver, “Ich bin heiss” meaning to say the temperature in the back of the bus was too hot.  The bus driver taking advantage of her limited German, pulled the bus over and started to the back of the bus with a lecherous grin on his face.  What she had communicated had more of a sexual connotation.  She should have said “Mir ist heiss.”  But that was a lesson that we all learned from!

I had met Mary Lou by this time.  With her pixie hair cut, infectious smile and tiny stature we were naturally drawn to each other.  She was from California, spoke no German, but planned on living in Heidelberg for a year.  We exchanged addresses and phone numbers when she needed to get off the train in Heidelberg.  We visited several times during our “year abroad” and she is one of many I regret losing touch with in those days before social media and cell phones.

I travelled to Munich arriving in the morning of day 3 of my adventure.  I stumbled off the train and looked for a hotel where I could catch up on some sleep.  Although I’d studied German for 5 years, I was only fluent in two expressions I’d learned in high school and a few songs.  So, my “useful German” consisted of “I don’t know what it means that I’m so sad”  (from The Loreliei)  “A girl without freckles is like the sky without stars” (my favorite proverb)  and the most useful one “Can you tell me where I can wash may hands?”