Saturday, February 13, 2016

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your Valentine's Day Story



It's Saturday Night - 
time for more Genealogy Fun! 



Valentine's Day is tomorrow (I hope you remembered to shop today!) 

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:


1) Recall a memory of a Valentine's Day in your life. Is it the first love of your life? A special day with your lover, spouse or significant other? Do you have a picture of a Valentine's Day event, or a special Valentine that you received, to share?


2) Describe your Valentine's Day memory, activity and/or image in a blog post of your own, a comment to this blog post, a comment/post on Facebook, or a comment/post on Google+.


3) Have fun remembering your special day.

Here's mine:



Flash back to 14 February 1970 - 46 years ago - it's a Saturday night. I'd been dating Linda seriously for about six months and we knew that we were "in love." We'd had a lot of fun, met each other's families, talked about the future, what we want from a marriage, and knew each other pretty well.

We were invited to a Valentine's Day party at Linda's cousin's house in Ocean Beach. I'd met them before, and Sue's husband, Bill, was a funny and raunchy guy - as I thought I was. We go, and meet many of their friends, and I'm introduced as "Linda's good friend, Randy." One of the ladies (Sue's age then - maybe 40ish) corners me and says "How good a friend are you?" giving me a wink and raised eyebrow.

Without a blink, I blurt out "well, I'm proposing to her tonight, but don't tell anybody!" She says "Don't worry, I'll keep your secret" and gave me knowing glances the rest of the night. After we leave the party, she went to Sue and said "Guess what Randy told me" and tells Sue the secret (there's a lesson learned here, eh?).

We didn't go directly home, as I still have to fortify my courage a bit more. We stopped at our favorite bar, King Luis Inn, for a drink and some bar singing (we loved doing this while dating). None of the regulars were there, so I can't blurt out the secret to them. I had talked to my Catholic priest friend, Father Jack, who was visiting San Diego, and had suggested that we meet at the bar, so he is there when we get there. When Linda goes to the ladies room, I tell Father Jack my secret.

Now well fortified and well committed, I carefully drive us to Linda's apartment and we have an appropriate amorous interlude. It's time to exchange Valentine's Day cards and gifts, and I only have a card. She opens my card and inside I've written "Will you be my Valentine ... forever?" She looks at me, now down on my knees, and says "does this mean your proposing to me" and I said "Will you marry me?"

Of course, another appropriate amorous interlude occurred, and I went to my apartment an hour later. We went to the church on Sunday (after about 3 hours sleep!) and talked to the pastor, and asked him if he would marry us on 21 March 1970. He said he would, and we set off on the whirlwind five weeks of preparation and planning that culminated in a 7-day honeymoon in Acapulco, but that's another story.

So Mr. Romantic did a pretty good job of finding an excellent woman to marry, and after 46 years we're still in love and living amicably together. It hasn't been much of a struggle. Life has been good for us with health, work, children, friends, church, hobbies, vacations and now 5 grandchildren. We look forward to spending our 46th anniversary in Las Vegas - making more family history!

We still laugh about 14 February 1970.

=======================================


Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


No comments: