how to marry a stranger

You can say it just happened, if it happened to you, like it did me. I can't say I planned it, it just happened.

    I was 23 years old. Lonely, bored and aimless, wondering where I was going with my early 20's life, wondering when, if ever I was gonna find the girl I wanted to marry. Not the girl of my dreams. Didn't believe back then there was such a one, any more than I believe today that there's such a thing as a soul mate. I think anybody you share life with in reciprocal love and respect is, or can be a soul mate, That is, it can be any friend you share a heart to heart with.

    It just happened 40 years ago. I'll take you back, way back. I'm driving on a country road on Price Avenue on the western side of the California San Joaquin Valley. I'm farming, for a large 5,000 acre ranch and I see her comin' in a bright blue Camaro. Well, blue is my favorite color. She waves at me while giving me a the brightest auburn hair and smile I'd ever seen. It's dazzling and magnetic, no escaping it for me. I wave back enraptured.

    She speeds past me and my white Chevrolet pickup and I've lost my thought as to what I'm doing on this dirt, semi-graveled country road. But I collect my thoughts to plot and plot I do. I'm gonna figure out how to excuse myself to approach her close enough whereby I'm not coming on as if I'm really interested in her.

    Prior to this waving event, I'd had a sort of pseudo disdain for her which had been entirely unfair to her. I didn't even know her at the time, but because she'd been hired to replace another young lady of about my age, I projected the firing to have been her fault. Simply stupid of me and biased. At least I admitted as much afterwards.

    I suppose that time healed these unrighteous feelings. I soon forgot about the fired secretary whom this beautiful young lady in the blue Camaro had replaced.

    I wheeled the pickup around as discreetly as I could and approached a parking spot right outside the farming company's shop and attached office wherein she worked.

    "Could I have some change. I'd like to buy some soda." There was a self dispensing Pepsi machine right outside her office.

    She was standing, her back to the front entrance door, wearing some killer, ultra bright white, skin tight fitting dress pants. Her butt was exquisitely fitted within those pants and I was hungrily staring through them. She spun around quickly, pretty well startled at my abrupt approach. As she did so, piled boxes that had been stacked about her, tumbled to the floor. In her own nervousness, she had stumbled into them.

    "Yes, I'll give you some." Our first exchange of words, approximately 40 years ago. Even now, this just suddenly hits me as if a wonderful fantasy. She and I had been virtual strangers to one another over a period of about 15 days or so, after she'd been hired. First the wave and now our first words.

    She took a few steps toward her desk to retrieve some change, two quarters at the time. She reached out to place them into my hand. My hands were in my pockets, nervously fumbling in mindless agitation. I pulled out my left hand clutching a handful of miscellaneous coins. In short, I had more than enough change to have bought a can of soda. I looked up from looking at my distracting hand to see her smiling face. We both laughed. I stuck the change back in my pocket and took her two coins without even offering to pay her back.

    "Thanks." I said without any further words and ungracefully walked out to the soda machine, enraptured, but maintaining a quiet cool, or so I thought.

    I couldn't stop thinking about her any time after that. It was difficult to concentrate on my work. I had noticed a white dove icon on the rear windshield of her Camaro and figured she was a christian. Being a christian myself, it occurred to me that I'd ask her for a date.

    The next day, I worked the nerve to ask her whether she'd go to church with me. It was in the afternoon almost time for us to call it a day. I'd been hearing her voice on the radio throughout the day as she corresponded with various employees working on the ranch. I began to love hearing her voice and in the process couldn't wait to talk to her again.

    I entered her office and as I stepped in, looked down on her as she was seated behind her desk, just as a secretary would. As God is my witness, as my eyes met her own bright green ones, a bright jewel like flash of sparkling light emanated from her eyes to mine. It was just like I'd seen in one the Monkees television shows I'd watched. Two of the characters who had fallen in love on one scene had the same experience.  Later in our relationship, she related that she'd had also seen sparkling light sparkle out of my eyes into hers.

    "I wanted to ask you if you'd like to go to church with me?"

    "Okay." She responded innocently, you can come with us, my mom and brother and me." Her green eyes contrasted beautifully with her glowing auburn hair.

    "Great. What time?"

    "Meet me at my house at 8:00 a.m., Sunday morning."

    I was ecstatic, it had been easier than I thought it would be. What amazed me the most was how readily she had accepted my invitation. In retrospect, I wondered how I had made the invitation to church when I didn't even have a church to go to. But I suppose subconsciously, I figured she'd fill in the gaps.

    I knocked on the screen door of her house. Her mother answered with a slight southern drawl that contained a cheery tone. I saw her tall figure and attractive face through the screen mesh. I felt welcomed by a total stranger.

    "Terry, someone's here to see you."

    I felt a surge of elation as I heard her daughter run to the door. She was wearing a beautiful white dress with thin bordered margins of candy red pink. Again, I was elated. My heart beat with joy and anticipation.

    The next morning she invited me to lunch. She was wearing those amazing white dress pants again. I was beginning to feel light headed every time I saw her. In fact to assuage these feelings somewhat, I found reasons to talk with her on the two way Motorola radio. I'd ask questions pertaining to tractor assignments and their corresponding drivers and fields of  cultivation, just to hear her voice and connect to her.

    She had brought me a sandwich and invited me to eat in her car. Everything she had for carrying the contents of her lunch was colored purple and various hues of it.  Purple was and still is, her favorite color.

    Her thermos was dark purple with a lighter tone of it for a cap. I remember her unscrewing it and pouring tea. She said she loved tea. She offered me a sip. It was refreshing because she gave it to me. It was refreshing to see her lean over, waist down as she reached for items down and across her seat. Her pants strained against her thighs and the waist band fitted her in an alluringly sleek fashion. Seven. She later told me she was a size 7. The first time a woman's size ever occurred to me and retained unforgettable.

    "Would you like to drive with me to return a library book back to the University?" It was something I had to do and on impulse asked if she'd go.

    "Sure. What time?"

    We drove to the library and on the way back to her house, I plotted to ask her an important question. It had only been 3 days since she'd waved and exchanged a few words and coins for my soda. My Opal Kadett sedan, with its 1.1 liter engine, was missing its muffler, so it was difficult to speak and hear each other during our transit. Not romantic at all, right?

     We were approaching the intersection of Poulsen and Wylam avenues. The remaining mile to that point seemed to diminish upon itself in slow motion. My heart beat at a higher rate than normal. How would I ask her the question? Would she be offended? I rehearsed my form of approach to the question over and over again to the point of irrelevant ambiguity and redundancy, making myself inwardly delirious with over thinking.

    "This is it. I've got to do it." I thought.

    Nope. It wouldn't happen. I stopped for the stop sign. Lost my nerve. Looked both ways for oncoming traffic. Empty country roads as far as the eye could see. The setting sun cast a yellow orange light across barren, fallow fields, interspersed with farming equipment that lay stoic across the vision of my half hypnotized state of mind.

    First gear. Small engine, high rpm. Second gear. High rpm, high raucous muffler noise. Ear splitting racket to match. How could she tolerate the noise? She's some girl. 4th gear. One gear left . . .

    "So. Would you live with a guy like me?" I half way shouted.

    "I don't think so. I don't believe in living with someone without marriage."

    I contemplated. "Wow." I thought while performing some quick mental calculations having to do with appropriately delivered interactive social norms. "So far she seems open minded to this near stranger. She actually rode with me on a silly 100 mile round trip to to deliver a stupid library book. There's hope."

    Another half mile or so elapsed. "So. Would you marry a guy like me?"

    "Stupid, awkward line," I thought to my introspective self.

    "I'd marry you, but not live with you unless we were married."

    "Wow!" Again. I'd never asked any girl such a difficult question. I had totally botched my delivery. My timing had been off, awkward due its setting, but I'd pulled it off almost in a desperate way. Everything had been a whirlwind. I'd asked her to marry me and it seemed she'd accepted.

    We married 3 months after my weird proposal. All her friends said it would never work out. We'd be divorced like them.

    Still married today, November 13, 2016. Two strangers who met and agreed to marry after a 3 day acquaintance, 40 years ago. Two beautiful children followed, along with dogs, cats and a home.

    I love you more each day. Happy anniversary Terry!