I was just reading about Marsh and his 1928 Buick touring car found in a barn that they had a lot of good memories in that car (probably driving places) and about Briegull and her hoop skirt in the Alrighty Then thread from 2009 and I started thinking about all the stories and all those different times and eras that the people here must have seen (like the hamburger joints with roller skating waitresses).
Something drew us to each other and in all those times there were things that happened where when we think back there is some story that helps define our spouse for us or helps define why they became our spouse or something that happened around that which we remember.
I saw this with a friend where I knew the mother and we were young and she was crabby and much later when I helped him unpack her house - there was a picture of two young people in leathers on a motorcycle both with life in their eyes laughing into the camera. You could see the love of life on their faces. He had it framed. Everybody has things they did or things that defined them or memories of something that happened.
My parents met because they both worked in a movie theatre where dad got up the courage to kiss her in the projection room during a Clark Gable movie. I married the little red headed girl in Charlie Brown. We had a huge fight early in our marriage and I told her I was going leave and hitchhike around north america. She said she was coming with me. We both quit our jobs and stored our meagre possesions with our parents and for seven glorious months we hitchhiked across canada and then down the coast to San Fransisco where I got work cutting up old warships and we lived for a few months. That was our only real fight in 40 years and it was because she kept paying too much attention to another guy. Never heard from him again.
It doesn't have to be a story. Maybe the things you noticed about them. I just wonder how it is we came together and all the moments that are lost like Robert Frost in that snow poem everyone likes. There was a time when life was bright and those are valuable memories. Maybe people aren't in the mood to recollect some of those cherished things. Maybe they are.
I met my husband on the SS Nieuw Amsterdam. We were students: I was on my way to spend my junior year in Germany, and Siem had a summer job as a night steward on the ship (my deck). I was looking for someone to practice my German on, and here was this handsome fellow whose job was to cater to my (well, all of our) every wish from 7 pm to 7 am. I spent most of the nights on that voyage sharing the tiny cubbyhole where he had to shine any shoes left outside our cabin doors. Later he said that he knew the first time he saw me that he wanted to marry me, but it wasn't till the last night on board that he dared to kiss me (strictly forbidden for crew to fraternize with the passengers of course). When I left the ship (and proceeded to sleep through our tours of London and Paris on the way to Heidelberg) I did not expect to see him again, but to treasure the memory of my shipboard romance. But he came to see me in Heidelberg (hitchhiking) and invited me to spend Christmas with his family in Holland. I did, it was a magical white Christmas with skating on the frozen canals and before I took the Lorelei Express back down to Heidelberg, we were engaged. It was the coldest winter (1962-63) in living memory and the Neckar was frozen over and had to be dynamited to save the ancient bridge from collapse. I stood watching on the banks with the rest of the population and wondered what my life would be like.
What great stories! Don't tell me any more. I'm having trouble reconciling the beauty of life with the crappy tragedy. Ok, go ahead. Dealing with it is part of the job.
Jeanette, I wondered how you ended up with a Dutch husband. Really great stories. Mine is quite pedestrian by comparison.
If you go to the home page and look on the left side, there is a box titled "Love Stories". It is in there you will find many of our members stories. Everyone please post your stories here, and I will then transfer them to that section. We haven't had any new ones in a long time, and I would love to update that section.