...I know I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree but I never thought of myself as a complete dunce. That is until I decided to create a new blog. It's a nice blog, classy, modern, and completely useless. I have been able to post one article on the site and it was just a test run. So, I give up. I will continue to use this old site. It's easy and doesn't make me feel so DUMB!! I will occasionally post on here with a serious comment or two amid the stories I like to write and I hope you like to read. I feel I better not try to be serious today after admitting total failure with my new site. I still have lots of untapped memories so I'm gonna sit here for a minute and try to remember one.......
....long pause, lunch, nap....
Oh yeah, remember when I saw this girl, Debbie Tatom, for the first time? I hate to say it was love at first site because she was only eleven years old and while I didn't have pervert status, I felt like one for noticing this child at church for the first time. I was fourteen don't you know, so I kept my thoughts and comments to myself. In all honesty my attraction to her was completely innocent. I just thought, "What a pretty little girl. I wish she was older."
Time passed and I followed my dreams, my education, and girls, all over the place. My parents were very clear about the order of life. It was pretty simple: Get out of high school. Go to college. Get a job. Get married. Have babies...all in that order. Since I hadn't completed even the first requirement of this assignment I never gave thought to who I would marry. I just figured when it was time the right person would come along. No sense even thinking about it until I aced all the other stuff. The training was supplemented by a secondary responsibility not discussed but definitely understood: No sex til you're married or you will be smitten with either lightning, plague, blindness, or possibly all three. This threat wasn't what kept me from messing up however. The driving force to my straight and narrow was my mom's promise that nothing was better than the wedding night...but only if I kept myself "pure" for it. Now, cut it out. I am not a prude. I just thought this was darn good advice and I promised myself I would follow it.
As I got older and started actually dating girls as opposed to just ogling them and wishing, the thought of long term relationships never entered my mind. After one terrible experience of "falling in love" I avoided serious relationships to the point of being rude and/or thoughtless to those lovely ladies who passed through my life. If I could go back with apologies....well, I probably wouldn't. It would be my luck I would go back say, "Hey I'm sorry I treated you so bad" and she would say, "Who are you?"
All my experiences having to do with girls always came back to, "What a pretty little girl. I wish she was older." I thought if I ever decided to get serious enough with a girl to consider marriage, she would have to be like that girl I remembered from church. As I got through high school and halfway through college serious thoughts did start to occur. Would this girl be the one I got serious about? The answer was always "no" because things just didn't feel right. I didn't know what it was exactly but I decided to let the Lord handle it. The Lord works in mysterious ways. My brother Glenn was in the same class with this Debbie Tatom. He would make comments like, "She is so rude and stuck up. I can't stand her!" My best friend during these years would continue to say, "I think you need to date Debbie Tatom and no, she isn't too young for you." I would constantly run into her at parties, Jack Clark's Drive-In and other strange encounters. Glenn would continue to complain about this snotty girl named Debbie, in band with him.
Then the serious situations started happening. Glenn would ask me to pick him up from marching band practice and I found myself getting there earlier and earlier. It seems I didn't spend much time watching Glenn practice but I did notice Debbie Tatom a lot. Still, I was clueless.
When my friend from high school came home from college for the Christmas holidays I stopped by to see him one night. He was getting ready to go out with his girlfriend and suggested I come along. I refused of course. Nothing worse than the old third wheel hanging around...especially since my friend hadn't seen his girlfriend for a whole semester. Not gonna happen I responded. He was holding the telephone about to dial when he suggested I call Debbie Tatom. As he called who I assumed was his girlfriend he kept up the Debbie barrage. My argument was the same as always, "She's just too young". About the time I ended that last sentence, he handed me the phone and said, "Well you better come up with something because she's who I just called." Then he laughed as he walked out of the room. Sorry best friend if you ask me.
I could have hung up of course and no one would have been the wiser. It wasn't my phone and Caller I.D. hadn't been invented anyway. But I didn't hang up. I was intrigued enough to go ahead and talk to her. I apologized for calling so late but would she be interested in going bowling with me and friends? She didn't hang up on me and to my surprise she seemed happy I had called. Well, okay then. I guess I'm going bowling with this girl who's too young for me. I certainly hope I don't get arrested, or shot by her daddy when I show up. The date went better than I thought it would. I had more fun than I had experienced in a long time. She was dressed like a model when I picked her up. She was interesting, funny, beautiful, and she laughed at all my jokes without it seeming to be fake. She wasn't at all stuck up as I had been led to believe. I had found someone I truly enjoyed being with. I was surprised and very pleased. When I got home that evening my brother asked where I'd been. I told him I had taken Debbie Tatom bowling. He rolled his eyes and said, "Not Debbie Tatom! Why'd you have to go and take Debbie Tatom out? Don't you know she's a stuck up snob?" I had to disagree with him and told him it was the best date I had ever had. He tried to make me promise I would never take her out again but I couldn't make that promise. I didn't know if she would ever agree to go out with me again but I was sure going to try.
As a summary to this too long story, I'll try to answer some unasked questions: Was Debbie a stuck up snob? Nope, she was blind as a bat but wouldn't wear her glasses except when she was driving. She just couldn't see anyone when walking down the hall at school. Did Glenn ever forgive me for taking her out? Yes, eventually but first he had to tell me she was already telling friends at school that she had gone out with the guy she was going to marry. Did we eventually get married? Oh yeah, we did. About a year and a half later. I was a junior in college. She was a senior in high school. She graduated in January and we married in February.
I'm sitting here now looking over at my seventy year old bride. She's also the mother of two grown men and the grandmother of eight perfect kids, ranging in ages from twenty-one to seven. She's also my best friend. She doesn't seem too young for me anymore even though her mother had to go with us to the courthouse for our marriage license. She had to sign for Debbie....because she was just too young for me!
Thank you Lord.
Love this story! :D
ReplyDelete