I was walking over to the library today, listening to the crunch of red leaves under my shoes (so glad that in this ideal climate there is some autumn for me to enjoy) and remembering a great fall day from my past.
It was my first date with Fred. We had been talking on the telephone for hours a few times each week, he in Columbus and me in Chicago. We had just finished high school and met over the summer at some church functions. He had asked me if he could write to me and I said not unless the intention was that we were going to get married, otherwise it would be a waste of time. (Crazy, hey) He said that was fine and so we started our 5 year long distance courtship.
I got lots of advice that we were too young (I was 18 and he was 17 when we met) that we would grow away from each other and should not be making this kind of a commitment at this age. That we would be different people when we were 25 than we were at 18.
My first visit to him was a day late in October, when fall was in full swing in Columbus Ohio. Back then a round trip ticket from Chicago to Columbus was $44 on AmericaWest Airlines. I got into Columbus at 9 am and was scheduled to leave at 9 pm. Fred picked me up in his red Nissan Pulsar NXSE (which I was so enamored by) and we drove to the Ohio State campus. We walked and held hands and talked as our feet crunched through the leaves and the scent of fall wafted up around us. I'm not sure where we ate that day, or what else happened, but as we were waiting in the top level of the parking garage for me to go back to Chicago, we decided that we would get married as soon as we finished college. A perfect fall day.
No comments:
Post a Comment