Her name was Sherry. Her build was close to Joyce and her looks were as close to Joyce as any other woman I have seen in my 78 years on earth. I was madly in love with her in 1960. I had no car, hardly any money and my grandpa would take me to her home for an occasional date. I remember two of those dates well. One was a nighttime hayride on some farm nearby Saint Louis. The other was to a pool party with other teenage friends from highschool. One the hayride she was spoken about by all those who saw her with me. The other was to a pool party with the same crowd. Sherry filled out a bathing suit like no other young woman there. All of the guys couldn’t take their eyes off her as we splashed about and culled in the pool. Sadly her family life was terrible. Her drunken mother and harsh step-father made her life miserable, so miserable that she married some nearby farmer’s son who had a shiny new car and took her away from her broken family life and created a broken heart for me. As always, things we want are taken away at some point and while it is heart wrenching at the time when it happens, things eventually turn around and better things are on the horizon for us, if we believe they will. I can look back now and see that Sherry and I would not have worked out and we would have ended our relationship because happiness was something she was incapable of having.
Next came Debbie. She was a nice looking girl and a lot of fun in the back seat of my 57 Mercury. One might say hotter than the 4th of July. When we went on dates, she was always late and forever upstairs putting on makeup and clothes. Her parents were alcoholics and he was usually passed out, while her very attractive mother was making passes at me in her drunken evenings. While we were on dates I discovered Debbie was self-centered and would not lift a finger for anyone anywhere. I knew she was not long term material, but enough fun that I went back for more. Little did I know that she was a stalker along with everything else she did that was weird.
One Saturday night, I was kept late at the gas station by my boss where I worked. By the time I got home and showered, it was 8:30 or so. I called all of my friends, but they had already left for the evening. My last call was to a guy I went to school with and he was home. I picked him up and we headed to a drive-in to see a movie. Because it was so late the place was packed. The movie was popular at that time. I pulled in the one remaining space. I looked to my right at the car next to mine and I saw this heavenly creature sitting in the driver’s seat. That was the last I saw of the movie. All I wanted to see was her. As I gazed upon her beauty, I wondered how I could meet her? What would I say? What was my opening line? Time was slipping into the future and the future for me did not look good. I was confident at that time in my life, but I was not a bold young man. It was then that I realized if I didn’t take a chance immediately, I would never know if things would have been in my favor. I opened my door, walked around my car, opened her door and said, “Slide over” she did and thus began my love for her for 58 years. I have never been that bold or crazy since that one time, the one time it counted more than any other. Joyce was not thinking this thing would last and was indifferent to the event. That put me to work in a way I had never done before, to win her over. Joyce was different from any other I had dated before. It was not easy to win her over, but 8 months later we were married, much to the disdain of my father. The parents were thinking this would never last, but it did until death did separate us.
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