In honor of our 42nd wedding anniversary tomorrow I thought I should say something nice about the man I married. You listen to my rantings all the times when I am pissed off at the poor man so now you get to see the side that I fell in love with all those years ago.
Ger and I met while we were both teaching in an elementary school on Long Island. It was G's second year of teaching so he knew EVERYONE and I was the newbie. Just out of college and into the hornets nest of 60 ankle biting kindergartners. (30 in the morning class, 30 in the afternoon class) I had no clue who else worked in the school because my days were totally wrapped up in trying to survive. But one day as I was walking past the teachers room there was a group of male teachers who I knew worked in the building but didn't have a clue as to who they were. One of them said hello and that was the start of the rest of my life. G happened upon teaching 6 years after his college graduation with a degree in business. He never took an education course in his life and had no intention of ever being a teacher. But God works in mysterious ways and there G was, a 6th grade teacher, and SINGLE! I had no intention of finding a husband and he had no intention of looking for a wife but then there we were in the same place at the same time and the rest is history. I came to realize that this man was a very fun guy to be around. He was funny and unpredictable. A favorite memory of ours is the day the 6th grader was knocking on the window of my classroom with a note from "his teacher". My class thought this was the greatest thing ever that there was a kid at the window with a note. I read the note that contained a list of about 3 questions. The questions were something like, "Are you thirsty? Are you free tonight? Would you like to go for a drink after school?" It included the instructions to answer the questions and return the note to the messenger. Now what woman in her right mind wouldn't be swept off her feet with that? I naturally answered yes to all of the above and the rest is history.
Our engagement came 2 years later and that too has a story to it. G's family was living in Brooklyn and my family was in Queens so every once in a while we would drive in to NYC to visit the folks. On one particular weekend in April of 1968 I stayed with G's family and he and I went to the beach to fly a kite and walk by the ocean. While walking G stopped and opened a little box with a beautiful ring in it and asked me to marry him. My response . . . "IS IT REAL?" We had never talked marriage, never really discussed "our future" and here he is offering me a ring. All I could think was that this was one of his jokes or something. Thank God he has a sense of humor and didn't just walk away from me. Instead he assured me it was indeed REAL and he did indeed want to marry me. After much excitement from me and then his family we packed up to head over to my family's home to tell my parents of our engagement. My dad was out fishing at the time but my mom was home. According to Ger my mother's response to the news was to ask me, "Are you sure you want to marry this one?" DON'T ASK! God Bless my mother, she was not the most tactful person alive. I'm sure she meant something nice but it sure did come out weird. But it only gets better . . . My father then arrives home and sees the bottle of champagne that we had brought to celebrate our engagement. My dad gets all excited and says, "How did you know I caught a stripped bass?" (And you wonder why I am such a nut, look where I came from!) After the excitement settled down we did celebrate our engagement and I know my parents were very happy for us. (Or maybe they were just very happy to finally find someone who would actually marry me.)
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