Jul. 25, 2007 - 22:11 MDT

EARLY DAYS

It was during World War Two that we met, Heather and I. Although I was 4F due to arrhythmia (pulse over 100) I would have been draft exempt due to the fact I was working on the railroad. My best friend worked at the 7th Street Yard Office of the same Road, he lived a few doors from the house that my future wife lived. I visited him and his family frequently, loved his kids.

Heather was a baby sitter for his kids, but I didn't meet her until a roller skating party those of us at the freight house dreamed up. Funny, Bill my friend arranged to have his baby sitter be a date for a billing clerk at the railroad, he was a rather shy guy.

The girl I was going to go to the party with couldn't go, so I went stag.

Mr. Shy Guy couldn't skate very well and couldn't squire her around the rink, I think. Anyway, she and I had a blast skating together.

It was 1943, I was 22 years old and she had just graduated from high school. But I told my Dad at lunch one day that I was going to ask her Dad for her hand in marriage. He took it well, although Mom choked up a bit, but realized that sooner or later I was going to grow up. She said, "I do hope son, that you are mature enough to take care of a wife."

I approached her Dad with trepidation, he was a huge imposing figure of a man, hands as big as large hams and gruff as well. But I screwed up my courage to the tightest and popped the question to him (Heather was more than willing already). He took a deep breath and I thought now comes the explosion and the fists, but it was not that way, he smiled broadly and at that moment I was welcomed into the family.

Heather and I paid for the flowers, the reverend and such. The women folk on both sides of the family scoured up things as well as they could. The best they could do on silverware was a mixed set that went together well enough to my eye. There was very little else that could be bought in war time. My friend at the railroad found a place near where they lived for us, a small apartment in the second story of a house.

So, as Heather told me the other day, it was Father's Day 1943 when we married. We spent a week in a ghost town called Apex, about ten miles north of Central City, Colorado in a cabin owned by a man and wife I knew, I had worked with her before I went to the railroad. We were taken up by her brother, left with supplies for a week, and he drove off. She and I hiked once to Central City but for the most part spent our time in the little town. We scrounged in the abandoned cabins, found interesting bottles and such, played in the creek that ran nearby. We made sure to be in the cabin in the afternoon before the usual shower took place. I remember one time there was hail, our bedroom was on the second floor and the roof was galvanized iron, what a symphony of syncopation that was.

The week passed, we moved in to our apartment and continued to learn how to live together, a job I haven't perfected yet but am still trying.

Some time passed and the little two room house out south where I was raised to the age of 16 became vacant and Dad and Mom rented it to us for a mere pittance (the wages those days would be considered a pittance now) so it was a small sum.

Then a place a bit larger came open near Heather's folks and we moved there. It was great that she was so close to her Mom and received much advice, teaching and help from her Mom.

We moved our firstborn, a son, from the hospital to that house.

All along we were finding our way, both of us doing our best.

I guess it is because Heather is out of town visiting our daughter and her family that my mind and heart go back to the EARLY DAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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