Okay the story began back in about 1952 with Grandma Carol and myself and I was
working on the railroad and she was picking the strawberries for her parents
in the strawberry field and we used to always go down to the old swimming
hole at the Manistee River not far from her home and that's where I first saw her
she got my attention there she was suntanned totally bronze and she had
on a bronze swimming suit and we were all swimming there and she jumped in
the swimming hole right above me and I was swimming up and I saw her from
underneath with all the water and the bubbles in the sunshine and she was such
a beautiful creature but I really didn't get to know her then I just noticed her
and then the school year came and she was a freshman initiation so she had to
bow down to any upper classmen that requested it and I requested it several
times and but she was very bashful so it was kind of funny I enjoyed seeing the
bashful part of her and when she had seen me I think she kind of had a crush on
me because she'd always hide behind her girlfriends so I couldn't see her and
that was kind of funny and then my best friend was Paul Guthrie and she would
write him notes and ask him to ask me questions if I liked her or something
like that so that's how it all got started so I'd write her a note and Paul would
take a note back to her and then she'd write me another note and send it back
to me and finally at a football game in Traverse City was when I asked her for a
first date and we had won the game it was after the game she was a cheerleader
too she had been said she was in junior high school she was a good cheerleader
and so after the game I caught her before she got on the school bus and asked
her for a date to the prom and she said yes so that was our first date so we
had been you know communicating back for us for about a year or so before we had our
first date and so they just blossomed she liked me and I liked her I helped her
in English class and we sat together and held hands a lot in English class so I don't know how we did in that. I think we passed and we got
prompted a couple times or being too close in class but we had so many so many fun
times I had a convertible I bought and she did not like that convertible because
it blew her hair and so we drove over to Cadillac and got convertible hats so her
hair wouldn't blow all over the place but she still didn't like it and so that
was kind of a bummer I bought it just to take her around and show her off and she
didn't like that convertible one bit so so everything progressed and her mom
wasn't quite sure she liked me because I was kind of in the wild bunch and but
finally her mom consented but she couldn't get married until she was 18 so she
was 18 on October 8th and we got married on October 12th so we didn't wait too
long that was 18 and six kids later we were still married 54 years later and
still going strong so it was it was a wonderful marriage and a wonderful time
we just really enjoyed it but yeah it was it was fun we enjoyed life
together you
