This is my 9th year of writing in the annual April A to Z… and I changed my topic a few times until settling on DNA. I’m also writing again in my 3rd year of 52 Weeks 52 Ancestors this year… so April is going to be quite tricky for me… two designated posts a week the month. In as I was going to write a few DNA posts on the 52 weeks challenge, but then decided I could spread out my writing to keep all the DNA information in one grouping on the April A to Z. I hope you find it interesting how the DNA is tested for unusual topics like bitter sensitivity or hangryness… it’s been interesting to see if I feel Ancestry has hit the mark… or missed it. If you’ve never heard of the annual A to Z, then head over HERE for more info. It’s quite interesting to write on a specific topic for the month… meeting and making new friends as they visit… and visiting their blogs. It’s always a fun learning curve.
How ironic that our anniversary is this week May 5th…
I met my Fly-Boy over 53 years ago!
I walked into his “party” house he lived in… dressed in fringed, bell-bottomed jeans, an army field jacket, and very giggly… he tells me. I tripped and fell into his waiting arms… never leaving his side after that night. I still can’t walk a straight line today! He said when I walked in, he knew I was all he wanted in a girl… long dark hair, long legs and a southern drawl… he was a Yankee!
Love and marriage, love and marriage
They go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you, brother
You can’t have one without the other!
Some people spend years together before marrying… some are boyfriend/girlfriend all through school… while some only know each other a short time. We were that couple only knowing each other for a short time. We met on Halloween night at a club… me dressed in one of my prom dresses. While we didn’t really connect at the club… although he remembers watching me all dance all night… dancing all night long… every dance; I once enjoyed being out on the dance floor.
I was at the club under-age (19) that night and I so happened won best female costume… winning a case of beer. In as I couldn’t take possession of it, his friend claimed it for me to take back to their house of where my girlfriend and I were invited. I changed out of that dress into my regular attire of jeans, shirt and I still can’t remember of who I had snagged the army field jacket off of… but that’s what he remembers me wearing that night. Me, I hardly remember any of it, other than tripping in the dark house upon entering and he caught me… the rest is history!
But back to how long we actually knew each other…
By the middle of December, he was transferred to Loring AFB in Maine… over 1500 miles away. While we had been inseparable since the end of October… it had only been a short 6 weeks of spending time together when he wasn’t on duty at the base… Warner Robins AFB… Warner Robins, Georgia. Of course, he promised to call and write… but I worried he wouldn’t… and he probably then didn’t know what he would do. All he knew, was “that” he was required to arrive at Loring AFB on a designated day. He belonged to Uncle Sam… and went wherever he was told… like it or not!
In as his home state of Connecticut was enroute to Maine, he spent a couple weeks home before reporting for duty in early January. Hubby was used to snow… being from Connecticut… but when he arrived in snowy Maine… he was shocked in finding snow piled so high around the telephone poles… making them look only a few feet above ground. Upon arriving at the barracks, he found guys jumping out the second-floor windows into the snowbanks below… which were only a couple feet from the windows. His mind quickly wondered back to warm Georgia… and me… thinking of who he had left behind.
A short romance quickly progressed through letters and daily phone calls… making our hearts grow fonder and truly missing each other.
After learning from a roommate of how to bypass the base’s phone system to call off-base for free, he called me daily. We spent every night on the phone when he wasn’t on duty at the flight line; he worked on the B 52 bomber. I don’t remember too much of what we talked about, other than me telling him how much I missed him… and him doing the same… then about three months after enduring that 1971 cold, snowy winter, he called with more news.
The news… that he was soon heading to Thailand… way further than the 1500 miles of now. I had already planned to fly up in the summer as he knew I’d never survive winter there… and now plans had changed. I suddenly felt the rug pulled out from under me again… now what… I felt this was the end of us!
Within a day or so of that unbelievable news… Steve called and pretty much said that he was coming down to get me in a couple of weeks and we were going to get married before he left… and was bringing me to Connecticut to live with his parents. Had he even asked his parents… No! Did he even ask me to marry him… No! I don’t think I knew what to say… but I knew I wanted to marry him… was I even thinking about leaving home and going to Connecticut… No… we were in love and taking each day as it came.
While Steve never actually asked me directly to marry him… he did have to go to the base commander and ask him if he could marry me? I thought that funny! I still tell him today… I’m waiting to see him get down on his knee and ask… he laughs!
In as my parents had recently divorced the previous year… I stayed with my father to finish school… and had just graduated a few months before meeting Steve. I don’t remember who I told first, but I do remember telling my father and getting the look of “really.” He had never met Steve, and in knowing service guys… figured, he’s just telling her what she wants to hear. Daddy fussed at me when I quit my job two weeks before Steve was to arrive… but I kept telling him, “He will come.” Sometimes I did wonder to myself, as most would, but I knew he’d come back to Georgia… and me!
And one day late in April… Steve arrived at my door! Just like he said he would! In as we didn’t have cell phones at that time… you couldn’t stay in touch with people when they traveled… you just waited!
While I was beyond happy to see him… I suddenly felt nervous… apprehensive… and thinking, did I really know this guy… am I really going to get married… am I really going to Connecticut to live with strangers. Well yes, I was… and I did!
Daddies are all alike… protective over their little girls and my father definitely made Steve aware of that. I was sent to shower early that night, leaving them to talk… or rather Daddy to talk, and Steve to listen. They seemed to hit it off and… and 53 years later I can still say, “See Daddy, I told you it would work out.”
One thing my father told Steve was… “I’m sure glad I don’t have to feed you daily, as you sure eat a lot.” Ha… he was only used to feeding me, and I probably didn’t eat at home that often… spending most of my time over at my girlfriend’s house, where her parent’s fed me.
My mom immediately took to Steve, hugging him right away when we went to visit… calling him her son. She had moved home to care for my grandfather, while I stayed with daddy to finish school. I didn’t want to leave in my senior year and graduate at a different school, but I visited her often.
When I think back upon how I left my home… my parents and moved to another state… so far away… well, I now wonder how I did that. But I guess it’s one of those things… just young and in love! Today, it would petrify me in doing such a thing… and I could never do it, but this young 19-year-old packed up her possessions, said goodbye to her mother, father and best girlfriend and left with the love of her life.
Mama always had more control over me when she lived home… like most mothers do over teenagers, but I liked having more freedom with daddy. I’m not sure I would have ever met Steve if Mama had been home as she probably would have caught on more about the club I was going to or the spending the night at a friend’s house… and really not there; mama’s always have that insight, as they once were young girls. When I think back, I’m not sure how or why the “cop” at the door always let me and my girlfriend in, but he knew we didn’t and wouldn’t drink, so he let us come in. We just wanted to dance! Steve told me later, that he had seen me a few times there, but I always seemed busy on the dance floor… so he just watched me.
The hardest part was saying goodbye to everyone… especially daddy. I never realized until much later how hard it was for him. I wasn’t as close to my father in growing up… but once living only with him, we really became close. While I didn’t realize it… it was very hard on him in me leaving, so hard that he skipped out early that morning before we even woke… leaving me a note that he was called into work early and would call later. He did call to say goodbye, but I’ve never forgotten how I missed out on that last hug. I think that’s what gave me the many dreams of always trying to find him… calling him and he doesn’t answer… or going home to look for him, while never finding him. I think those dreams came because I never had that last hug, but recently I had a dream where I found him, and we hugged so hard… so maybe I won’t have those dreams again of searching and searching for him, only to never find…. maybe he came to me in my dream to give me that last hug. I woke up feeling so good… wanting to go back to sleep, only to dream it again.
It was exciting in traveling… being on our own… married… and spending our honeymoon on the road in heading to Connecticut. I don’t even remember being scared when we pulled into his driveway. Everything was all new to this Southern girl… I definitely wasn’t in Georgia anymore… I was now in the North where everything seemed so different… but I had Steve beside me.
I was young and very green in being on my own… Steve was four years older than me. I looked to him… he was my protector. He was already used to being on his own being in the Air Force… and I felt safe with him.
The food was the first of many different things I discovered… and they talked different than me (LOL) and used words I never heard of… but as he tells me now… “you fit right in. When I came back from Thailand, I couldn’t believe how well you fit in with the family, you went to my grandmother’s almost daily, like everyone else did… you knew your way around my hometown… you had gotten a job… and you were happy.“
I was too young and naive to even understand how his parents must have been feeling at that time… as he broke the news to them in stopping there on his way to Georgia. I’m not sure how I’d feel, knowing a strange girl was coming to live in my house. From what I learned later, it hadn’t set too well with his mother at the time, but we soon learned to get along pretty well after a period of adjustment. His father and I took to each other right away… so I knew I had an ally. I think he’d always wanted a daughter…. and he truly treated me as such.
Fifty-three years later, two children… one-daughter in-law, one son-in-law, five granddaughters… and we’re still together. All is Good!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeanne
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Everyone Has a Story 
Very well written , just like everything you do 125%
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