My First Real Romance

Saying for the Day: Forever isn't very long.

Today’s artifact is a crumpled , coffee stained napkin. That green stuff is mold. I haven’t taken good care of my artifacts.

This artifact is there to remind me of the first girl I ever fell in love with.
She was an angel. A beauty beyond belief.

We met at Inter Varsity ( That was one of those fundamentalist, somewhat arrogant Christian college groups) Our eyes met , our hearts beat as one. The heavens opened, the birds sang, the bells joyfully rang out and the earth swallowed us up.

We didn’t hear a word of the deep theological truths being presented. Our friends, I had a few in those days, saw what was happening and drifted off leaving us together and alone.

That’s where the napkin comes in. I invited her out for a cup of coffee at the University center and she put her coffee cup on this napkin. It should be in the National Archives. I will never part with it.

After that we were always together. We walked around campus hand in hand. We kissed in the lobby of the girls dorm ( forbidden in those days) causing the two chairs to move apart and dumping us on the floor. We did everything that unmarried Christian kids could do together.

I took her home to meet my mother and my grandmother.

I graduated at mid term and to be near her started work on a Master’s Degree. (Ma thought I should go to work. She had no grasp of the power of real love)

No, I will never part with this napkin, never.

I wish I could say the same about her. When I went off to seminary ( that’s a place where naïve, believing, young people go to be turned into cynical, almost unbelieving pastors but that’s a different story) she went off to France and sent me a dear John letter which included my 8x10 picture which she said she would cherish forever.

Forever didn’t last long.

She said she didn’t think that she had what it would take to be a Lutheran pastor’s wife. She had heard all those parsonage horror stories spread by pastor’s wives that had nothing else to do but pick on the parish their husband pastored.

She believed them. She really thought the parish was right next to hell on earth.( Unless hell is truly dull it isn’t)

So there I was . All I had left of my one true love was a napkin with a coffee stain.

I was so upset that when I took my entrance psychological test ( all Lutheran seminarians have to take a psychological test because there are so many nut cases trying to get into the ministry) the psychologist called me in to discover what traumatic event had happened to me recently.( It did keep them from discovering how crazy I was)

Well that’s it for the napkin. It will always remind me of that wonderful time in my life when I was really and truly in love.

My wife wants me to get rid of it. But I never will.

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7250 spins without a prize. Yesterday old hapless found a new way to lose. He was watching the NBC program "Deal or no Deal" and they invited him to pick one of six cases with $10,000 in it. He picked number 2 and it was the right case. Of course thousands of other people picked the same case and when they drew the winner it wasn't hapless. Now he has to wait until Wednesday to play the game again.
Well Uncle Wiggly lovers if old hapless doesn't goof up and pick the right numbers in the IWON.com lotto causing him to push the wrong button on the lift chair knocking over his laptop. We will be back tomorrow with "As the World Spins".
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Another horrible day in the lift chair. The legs are a little better. The good news for the day is that my track came. I was able to do the wiring from the lift chair and Betty got it together on the table. We ran the garden train. It looked great.Well I need a breathin g treatment.
GBYA