I Like Thursdays 2-16-23

It's Thursday and time to make a list of my likes! I like this event hosted by LeeAnna of Not Afraid Of Color, because I am more aware of finding positive things during the week.

Our best news of the week: our DIL received the results of her lumpectomy - all clear! She will have some radiation to remove all "shadows", but she will not need further surgery. Thank you so much for all your well wishes.

In honor of the "Love Month", LeeAnna asked us to tell about a time when we knew someone was for us. That is a photo of my husband and me during a college dance in the late 1960s. Randy and I have been together since we were freshmen in high school. We got engaged during our junior year of college, and everyone in our small town expected we would marry shortly after graduation.

So imagine everyone's surprise when I broke our engagement to date the preacher's son! "Butch" was a soldier who had returned home after being in Vietnam, and when he saw me in church, he decided to pursue me, even after he found out I was engaged. He sent me flowers the day after meeting me. I was pretty much swept off my feet, and our little town was scandalized! 

Butch and I dated for a couple of months, and just had fun being together. We made each other laugh - a powerful draw for me - and I enjoyed the attention of an "older man" - 25 to my 21! And I loved his parents - the preacher and his wife were close friends with my folks and were so much fun to be around.

During that time Randy tried very hard to win me back, sending me flowers, calling me, writing me love letters, even talking with my Daddy about what he should do. My Daddy was not happy with me at all during this time. He liked and trusted Randy, and he knew nothing about Butch. My friends told me Butch was the wrong guy for me - even my college roommate was against it. And I had not stopped loving Randy. We still saw each other frequently since we drove to and from college together on weekends. I was only seeing Butch on weekends, and I began to have doubts about what I was doing.

One day I talked it over with my Mom, who was amazingly diplomatic. I asked her how to tell which one was "the one". She asked me to think about what I liked about each one. The first thing I said was that I had never been bored with Randy, and she said "well I think that's a pretty good sign".  I don't even remember what I told her about Butch.

Shadow Mountain Inn is now a sushi restaurant!

One night after that, Butch and I had dinner at Shadow Mountain Inn, a romantic restaurant in Tulsa, on a hill with views of the city. Coincidentally, Randy had a weekend job at a filling station which was down the hill from the restaurant, and I didn't realize he was working that night. As Butch and I enjoyed our dinner, I happened to glance out the window and down the hill, and I saw Randy. He was hunched over from the cold, cleaning a windshield, and my heart just melted. I knew in that moment I'd rather be standing in the cold with him than where I was. I soon broke it off with Butch and never looked back.

We will have been married 54 years in October!

 

Do you have a story about how you "knew"? Or maybe your story is simple, like one of the trending abbreviations in social media - "IYKYK" (if you know, you know). Leave your answer in the comments, and then be sure to check out other "likes" on LeeAnna's post - right here!