34 Years Together Happy Fathers Day

It seems most people want to know how married couples met. It can be a mystery at times to think that two people that never really knew each other before can commit to being married to each other forever. Well for posterity sake I thought I would write about our story and share it with my blog followers.

Part of it will be from my journal and part will be from my memories of that time 34 years ago.

In 1976 I would often go to SLC to visit my friend T who was in the SL nursing program. She was instrumental in getting us together. This is how it came about.

1. I saw Tom for the first time in the U of U Institute church parking lot. My friend T pointed him out to me from a distance. I must admit I liked his tallness, dark hair and smile. She told me he had recently returned from a mission which I later found out was 5 months previous.

2. The first time I met him he was with his cute friend S T and they were helping a girl move in to the apartment where my friend T lived in SLC. This time I really liked his smile and dark curly hair but he was with another girl so that was fine with me. I was not the pushy type in any way.

3. A few weeks later he came over to T's apartment to drop off Valentines for all the girls living there. I was just visiting so I wasn't a recipient of a card but I did get to meet him. That was it for that encounter. This time I liked his thoughtfulness.

4. Later that same night of the Valentine delivery he came over to the apartment to play "Dictionary" with me, T and Steve. It was a fun game and we still remember one of the words that we had to define that night. ripophogy which means the eating of filth. Crazy that we still remember that word.

5. The next day he asked me to a Doobie Brothers concert which I said yes to. It really was a concert at a local church. The U of U college symphony was playing. Later that night we went for a walk through the local graveyard and he showed me where some of his relatives were buried. I remember there was snow on the ground and it was cold outside. We went into a local laundry room to get warm.

6. I asked him to a girls choice dance at my school. He traveled the 50 miles to see me and then went back home. We also drove to Bridal Veil Falls that night. That should have been a forewarning of things to come.

7. Tom asked me to see a Janice Ian contest so once again I made the trek up to SLC by hitching a ride from someone on the ride board.

8. And so it continued until he asked me to marry him on May 18th. We were married on July 28th after knowing each other for only 5 months. Call us crazy but it has worked.

We have had our adventures and our trials right from the start. Within a few months of our getting married I was fired from my job and we had a fire in our apartment. The fires continued through the years consisting of joys and hardshipsthat intertwined our lives.

Now after all these years we still enjoy our simple bonfires in the backyard and the flame continues.