How They Met

Ah love it can strike at the oddest of times between the most unlikely folks or in the most unlikely of ways. Here is my parent’s story. 

I grew up knowing it but only in my adult years did my mother share what I now know is the beginning and how my grandmother played an integral part in it all although completely without knowing it at the time.

My father was drafted. It was the 60's. When my grandmother got the pictures of him all dressed up in his uniform that the military had taken she put a copy in an envelope to mail to her daughter, my aunt and his older sister.

When the envelope was stamped addressed and mailed suddenly Granny as she liked to be called started thinking 

“My daughter might not be as excited about this picture of her brother as I am. I don’t want it to get mistreated being shuffled around amidst all her activities. I better wait to send it.”

So wait she did. The stamped and addressed envelope went into a drawer for weeks or months. I am not sure for how long.

Meanwhile my mother had met, her future sister in law. They were in Job Corps together I believe in Florida. My father’s family was in and from Oklahoma at the time.

This is where my mother always used to start the story. One day she went to see her future SIL who was in a different dorm room than her own.

When she got to my aunts' room my aunt was not there but a roommate was. My mom mentioned, as she inquired when her friend (aunty) might be back or where she might be, that she thought the guy in the picture looked nice or something. Maybe she asked if that was a boyfriend etc.

Either way when mom tells it she does not indicate that she was super interested. It might have just been a passing remark.

By the time my aunt heard about it or maybe because she heard about it, it turned into something else. The next thing my mom knew her new friend was telling her

"That is a picture of my brother. He is off in the war. I am supposed to be writing him letters.” 

Next came the question “Will you write to him instead?”

Thus began a love affair. So I like to tell people I am a product of the Vietnam war. I have no other idea as to how an ordinary boy from Oklahoma would have met my mother from a small tropical island in the Bahamas.

When the war was over the happy couple eloped to Oakland California and started a new life out here on the west coast.

Us kids came along five and ten years later respectively. (Here is a snap shot we snagged of my brother napping around Christmas time when he was here.)

I grew up thinking it was normal to fly on seaplanes. “Mommy the plane has on shoes.” I used to say of their little pontoons.

This post is brought to you by a prompt from one of my internet connections who was telling the story of how her parents met today.

Ironically both of us are single. hahahahah