MIMI'S MOMENTS: CUPID CAME CALLING

Who doesn't love the month of February! Love is in the air. It was 52 years ago today (Feb 13th) that Ned and I met. I was a stranger in his neck of the woods...the Sierra foothills of California. I had been invited to a college basketball game by an LDS girl that attended that college. I went...just for something to do. I and my mother and stepfather had just left Bakersfield, California for a job my stepfather was taking in the beautiful, quaint and historic town of Grass Valley. I was passing through...just staying with them a few days, then go to Chico and help an aunt as she had complete removal of all her teeth and then up to my fantastic hometown of Medford, Oregon
I went to the game with Mary Lou Jean (her maiden name)...Mary Lou drove as I had neither a driver's license or a car. The game was held a short distance away in the town of Auburn..where Sierra College was. We went to the game---boring as I knew no one on the team, or those sitting around me except sweet little Mary Lou whom I had only know for 3 days.

After the game there was a dance...must have been a Valentine's dance...don't remember, but I do know that cupid must have been there.   I danced and danced. Soon a tall, lanky blond haired young man came and asked me to dance. He wasn't a good dancer...just kind of shuffled in place. Oh well, it was better then standing there.   He asked me again and again and again.   Soon the dance was over and Mary Lou and I headed for the car along with some of her girl friends that had also gone with us to the game.

One of them spoke up and said, 'Ned wants to take "Dee" (my nickname in those days) home. I refused! I was not a "pickup"...never have been and wasn't going to start now. Besides that, he was just an okay guy. I really was not interested in him....he was not a good dancer and dancing was important to me.   To make a long story short the girls that were with Mary Lou were girlfriends of the guys that Ned was with and everyone was mixing up in the cars. Finally I agreed to go let Ned take me home since several others would be riding with us. The agreement was that I would be the first taken home. He was nice but just not my type. I was the first taken home. He walked me to the door of the lovely Victorian home we were renting. He asked me out for the next weekend. I said yes. He still wasn't my "type" but I thought it would give me something to do until time for me to go to my aunt's in Chico.

The next morning my stepfather..who was an alcoholic told me to get my b_ _ _ up to either Chico or Medford. He was mean when he was drunk. My mom put me on the bus the next day, but before I left I gave a note to Mary Lou to give to Ned. It said, "I cannot keep our date for this coming weekend. I am sorry. It was nice meeting you. Dee" That was it. No broken heart, no tears...no feelings. I left and fulfilled my job of helping out an aunt who also had always been mean to me and then I headed up to my home for all my childhood...Medford. I lived with another aunt until I found a job. Hated the job...a secretary/receptionist for the Credit Bureau of Medford. I am a softie and my heart would break when people would come in crying...they had bad credit and bad results from their credit.

I wanted out. A girlfriend that I had in Bakersfield had moved to Salt Lake City. She was about 5 years older than I and was living with her mom. She wanted to get her own place and invited me to come. I said okay, gave my boss my two week notice. I thought I would stop in Grass Valley (I am on a Greyhound) and go see my momma, My mom picked me up, went to her home and while there for a week's visit I thought I would call this Ned guy and take him up on the broken date. Now girls did not call guys in those days so it was hard for me to do this, but might as well be a nice girl and do the date that I had to break. I didn't even remember his last name...I had to ask Mary Lou what it was. Hertz or Hers or Hires...something like that...just a weird name. I called him and I said, "Hi, this is Dee C----------(my maiden name). His response? "Dee who?"   You can tell I must not have made a lasting impression. He came over the next day and took me swimming in the Yuba River. We had potato chips and pop and a blanket and the beautiful river and glowing sun...it was late summer. He kissed me. Now that was a "no-no" with me. No one ever kissed me on the first date. No one! He ruined it all! But it was surprisely a very nice soft, sweet kiss. He had stuffed my mouth with potato chips and he tried to get more in, I fell back onto the blanket and became trapped and there he all of a sudden was and he planted one on my salty lips. I was surprised! But all I coud do was giggle. I think I was embarrassed.

Time for me to move on to SLC. He and my mother took me to Reno, Nevada where I could get a bus to SLC...better connections than from where I was and Reno was a two hour drive from Grass Valley, California.   I said goodbye to Ned in Reno...no kisses...just a hug. After all, he wasn't my type remember? Long trip to SLC on a hot bus but finally made it. To make a long story short, my girlfriend's mother did not want her 25 year old daughter to move out and I did not want to live with the mother. So after only one week I was on the telephone sobbing uncontrollably to my mom asking, "cannnnnn I-I-I pleeeaaassseee commmmmme hommmmme? I called that guy again...Ned and asked him if he could pick me up at the Auburn bus station on such and such a date and time. I came. I waited and waited and waited. I think he felt like he was being used. I don't blame him. He showed up at the bus station one and 1/2 hours late!! And did so with his two youngest sisters (about 15 and 16) in the car.   He took me to Grass Valley.

Love did not come immediately. It slowly grew. I went to work at Bank of America in a small town, got an apartment there and was much closer to Ned's home that he had with his parents and children. The rest is a long story and you would be all day reading this, but suffice it to say that the girl who did not want to let Ned take her home back on Feb 13th and into the hour of midnight the 14rh of Feb...Valentine's Day...she really did not have much choice. Ned has his eyes on her from the moment she walked into the college basketball game that night....slim, pretty with a long ponytail...he noticed the "new girl" at the college game and wondered who she was. There was someone else that night that neither of us saw and that was CUPID....he shot his arrows sparingly...it took awhile for us to respond...but now it is 52 years later. We did not know that night on Feb 13th/14th that we would one day grow old together. Ahhhh, that is what love is all about. It comes when you least expect it and it really doesn't matter if he could dance or not.