Everyone Has A Story

I grew up surrounded by adults. The only other kid I had to play with was my brother. I was evidently rather precocious as a child. One story my Mom tells is how we went to the family cabin when I was 4 years old. My grandfather, a widower, had just remarried and they were taking them up for a weekend at the cabin. My maternal grandparents were already there and when we showed up they packed up to leave so there would be room. So, you have my parents bringing all their stuff in and my maternal grandparents tracking stuff out. In this chaos I asked my Mom when we were going for ice cream. There was a little country store down the road that had ice cream cups with wooden spoons and when we went there I always got one. In an effort to get me to quit asking Mom told me that when we needed milk we would go to the store. A little bit later I went to Mom and asked for a glass of milk. It struck her as odd, but happy that I wanted milk she gave me some and went back to her work. A little later I came back and asked for another glass of milk, which she happily gave me. I don't know how many glasses I drank, but after my maternal grandparents left things calmed down and when I asked for the next glass it suddenly dawned on Mom what I was doing. Needless to say, I didn't get any more milk. My grandmother told Mom after they got back that went they got in their car to leave my grandfather turned to her and said, "You know what Maggie's doing, don't you?" to which my grandmother said she didn't, and he told her that I was trying to drink up all the milk so they'd have to go to the store. Fortunately he didn't rat me out to Mom. Grandpa was always on my side, lol.

The most meaninful things to happen to me would be my husband and my son. Marrying my husband was destiny. Growing up I was Daddy's girl. Dad had been in the Army four years to earn money for school. Dad loved to watch war movies, documentaries about war and the military. He subscribed to The American Rifleman and kept up with guns, though he only had a few hunting rifles and one pistol for protection. So, wanting to spend time with Dad, I watched his war movies with him and learned about the things that interested him. He taught me the phonetic alphabet and 24 hour time. Dad had just missed the Vietnam war, so that was of particular interest to him and so I did a lot of reading about it. In the 80's our special night was Saturday when he and I watched Tour of Duty together. In high school I took the ASVAB, got a pretty good score and wanted to join the military, but Dad didn't want me to, he pushed for me to go to college first. So, upon graduation I went to college.

I already had a couple friends there, so I naturally just joined their group at meals. That group included hubby and his girlfriend. They were volunteer firefighters and frequently got calls just as they were sitting down for lunch or dinner. I probably ate more of his food than he did, lol. I hung out with them a lot, and I ended up on an extracurricular team with hubby where we got to know each other better, but we were always just friends. He and his girlfriend got engaged. In the middle of my first semester my Dad was diagnosed with cancer. We were told that with surgery and treatment he should make a full recovery, so I stayed at college, Dad wanted it that way. Hubby and his girlfriend drove me home for my birthday, had cake with my family, met my grandparents, and drove back (college was an hour away) Dad had lost a lot of weight. On my Christmas break he was having his treatments and i went with him. They made him really sick. After that I don't remember going home again until school was out. We got to leave after graduation, my family was there to pick me up, hubby and his fiancee were getting married that day and I was going to the wedding, but my family went out to eat, Dad wasn't in his right mind, and Mom took her eyes off the road to check on him and we ended up in a minor accident. At that point we just went home.

It was at that point I realized Dad was really bad off. Two weeks later he was in the hospital and two weeks later he died. It was kind of earth-shattering for me. Hubby's wife and a mutual friend came down for the wake and she invited me to come over to their house for a weekend after the funeral -- it was about two weeks away. She and our mutual friend drove up to get me, hubby had to work both during the wake and the evening they picked me up. We hung out at their trailer until midnight when hubby got off work at the mall as a security guard, we then went over to a friend's house to watch The Hunt for Red October. Hubby and his wife ended up falling asleep so it was just me and our mutual friend watching the movie. I had read the book so we had a pretty good conversation. After that I went back to the trailer with hubby and his wife. The next day there was a fire call but hubby couldn't go because he had to go to work in just a couple hours, so he and I ended up hanging out at the trailer watching tv and talking until he had to go to work. They only had the one car so I went with him and drove the car back so his wife could drive me home that evening. The next semester I went over to their place for dinner several times, a couple was just me and a few other times it was a group of our friends. Well, the middle of the next semester I learned that hubby's wife had left him and moved in with another man and hubby was moving to Pennsylvania. In just a few months they were divorced. I wrote to him, but he never wrote back.

I went on with my life at college, graduating two years later. I sent him a graduation announcement, but didn't hear from him. A few months later I was working in the Registrar's office as secretary and he sent in a transcript request to take classes at a local college. I sent him a note, never heard back from him. A new guy came to the college, we became friends, were hanging out a lot together, I grew rather fond of him and hoped we would start dating, but suddenly he just kind of dropped me and started chasing another girl. I was kind of crushed. That was around Thanksgiving. At the end of January I got a letter from hubby. It was kind of short, just letting me know he was in school again and appreciated the letters I had sent over the years. I wrote him back, but seeing as he didn't seem to be much for letters I didn't expect to hear from him again. A couple weeks later I got a phone call. It was a guy, he said "Hi," and I said Hi back. He asked how I was and I tentatively said I was fine, because i didn't know who it was. He kind of laughed and said, "You don't know who this is," and at that moment I recognized his voice. We ended up talking for three hours, which was probably longer than all our conversations put together up to that point. I got a letter from him a few days later and I wrote back. I got another phone call. This time he expressed interest in getting to know me better. I told him I cared for him as a friend, but I wasn't interested in dating. He said okay, and asked if it was okay to keep writing and calling. I said sure.

After a few months he asked if he could come visit. I said sure, it would be great to see him. I still thought we were just friends. He was coming from seven hours away. Yeah, I was pretty oblivious. We had a good visit, and it was at that point I realized I was becoming rather fond of him. A few weeks later he came for another visit. A couple weeks after that we were talking on the phone and he remarked that he was surprised he hadn't scared me off yet. I told him that the only way to do that was to ask me to marry him. He said, Oh really? Will you marry me? I laughed and told him "tomorrow." He called the next day and said, well, you said you'd marry me today. I told him, No, I said I'd marry you tomorrow, it's today so it doesn't count. A month later he asked if I would be willing to date him, and at that point I agreed. A couple weeks later he took me out to where he grew up to show me around and to meet his Mom and Grandma. Two weeks after that he asked me to come to PA to help him with a drywall job he was doing. It was during that trip, where we were working together, that when he jokingly asked me, Will you marry me? That I said Yes! (he had continued to ask me in almost every conversation since the first time it happened) He just kind of stoppped and looked at me, and then went back to work. I thought, Oops! Later that evening he asked me if I was serious. I asked about what, and he said When you said yes this morning? And I told him I was, and he gave me a great big kiss. That was on October 7. We were married in April, and by an interesting coincidence, our son was born on October 7.

I insisted he wear his uniform when we got married (his first wife had not wanted him to wear it, he wore a suit instead) and supported his military career. I've been immensely proud of him in every aspect of his service. He would forget himself sometimes and give me 24 hour times and then try to translate it for me and I'd tell him, I know what time that is. When spelling things he would start to use the phonetic alphabet and then stop himself but I'd tell him, I understand you -- though the one I learned and the one he learned are a tiny bit different, lol. His wedding gift to me was an SKS, and on our honeymoon he had me dry-firing it with a quarter balanced on the end of the barrel, lol.

There is one good thing about him going on annual training, though, and that is he misses me terribly and once he has caught up on his rest when he gets back we have a second honeymoon! Which explains why I've been kind of MIA here on the board for the past week and a half, lol.

I have to keep this in order so bear with me:
1st  Grandpas Rock !!
2nd Sorry about your Father,mine passed away from luekemia when I was 3months
3rd Tango Oscar Oscar    Charly Oscar Oscar Lima  on your nuptuials (spelling don't count)
4th We need a Blushing Emoji