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I hope you enjoyed the sweet, sentimental story of UltraMom and UltraDad’s first date. Unfortunately, however, we live in the real world, not the fairyland of first dates and storybook weddings.
UDad and I have celebrated our anniversary/first dates in various ways. Several times, it coincided with our appointment with our tax consultant. A couple of years saw UltraDad crawling around under the house with heat tape and/or a hairdryer trying to unthaw frozen pipes. Let me tell you what I did on THIS particular St. Patrick’s Day…........ (anniversary of our first date in case you have forgotten already).
As you know, UDad has been working in Nevada, so, first of all, we were not together. Fortunately, Johnny had returned from Japan a couple of days earlier, but I’m getting ahead of myself. It happened a little something like this….................
Well, I had a bone density scan done in early January, and, not hearing back from the Dr., finally requested a copy for myself. And it didn’t look that great, so I asked to talk to the Dr. about it, and, of course, he was away for the week. But his nurse called me back, and she was like “the dr. wants to set up an appointment to talk to you about this”, and I was like “well, I live a long way away; can’t we just do it over the phone?” But, “Noooo. He wants to do this in person.” So FINE. I made the appt for March 17, Thurs, left work early and drove 70 miles to Idaho Falls.
And, of course, I had to wait about 72 hours, and then, when I finally got to talk to the Dr. , he was all “It really doesn’t look too bad. You were reading it wrong because the color bands on the graph didn’t show up on your black and white copy, so I think you should just keep on doing what you are doing and we can retest in another year.” So I said, “You know, we really could have done this on the phone. I left work early and drove about 500 miles.” And so he said to just remind him of that next time and we could do it over the phone, but he liked to talk to people face to face to make sure they understood what he was talking about. Like, keep on doing what you have been doing is so hard to understand? Geez!
So then I had some shopping to do and I went to the mall, cause I had this coupon from Bath and Body Works, and I only had to spend $10 to get a free Cherry Blossom lotion, and its the newest kind, so I wanted it, but I always park at the food court entrance, right? but it was all torn up with some construction or something, so I had to go in the Macy’s store, and it used to be the Bon, but it isn’t anymore, and there was a gigantic sale going on so I had to spend about $60 on some new clothes, but I saved about $200, so that was a really good deal. And then I went to the Lenscrafters store cause I wanted to try some different glasses that turned into sunglasses when you were in the sun, right? But apparently, they don’t do that if you are in the car, so I had to get some sunglasses AND some regular glasses, so I went over to Sam’s Club to get some more stuff (like the new Incredibles movie) while they were making my glasses. I was doing really good, and only spent about $90 at Sam’s Club, which is really good for me, and drove back to the Lenscrafters, but when I parked, there was, like, a lot of steam coming out of the hood of my car. So I didn’t think that was very good, and I asked the guy at Lenscrafters about it, and he didn’t think it was very good either, so I went to an Autoparts place, and the guy there didn’t think it was very good, and my antifreeze was all gone, so we put some in, but when I started the car, the engine light kept going all the way over to HOT. SO, I called Udad’s brother Chuck and he was all “You shouldn’t drive it home. You should just call Johnny and have him come get you.” So, fine, I called him, and he wasn’t happy about it, but agreed to come, so then I had about 90 minutes to wait. And I was hungry, cause I had planned to eat my chicken on the way home, but it was really cold outside, and Wendy’s was closeby so I went in there and ordered a drink and some fruit and ate my chicken and read my book, “How to be your Dog’s Best Friend.”
After a while, I noticed that this guy was putting chairs up on the tables , so I said, “Oh, you are closed.” and he said “Yes, but you can stay for awhile.” and I said, “Well, I’m just waiting for my son cause I had car trouble.” and he said “you stay as long as you want. If anyone bothers you just tell them that David said you could stay. Thanks, David.
David looked to be about 30ish, and was, apparently, very social. Several teenagers were having a discussion at the next table, and after a bit, David went over to them and contributed this to their conversation, “You shouldn’t drink too many of those power drinks, cause its just like speed and you have a hard time coming down, man.” One of the kids said, “Didn’t you used to work at McDonalds?” And David said, “Yeah, but I got fired cause I got stopped by the cops, and I had like 10 lbs of marijuana in my car, and I had to go to jail for a while.” I didn’t hear anything for a bit, but then I heard David say “How many kids do I have? Nine. Oh, you mean living? Four. And I’m hoping we get a daughter this time, cause my other daughter, well she belongs to my sister’s best friend. Cause I was just doing her a favor, cause she likes the same sex I do, if you know what I mean, and she wanted a kid.” In response to snickers from the teenagers,” No, I didn’t enjoy it. I was just doing a favor for a friend.”
Well, the kids left, and I moved to a booth so David could finish putting the chairs on top of the tables. This sparked another round of stimulating conversation. “What are you reading? A book about dogs? I had a dog once. He was a Rottweiller (sp?) named Goliath and he was my best friend, you know, David and Goliath?, but this lady lied and said he jumped over her fence and bit her, but he couldn’t have cause he was all tied up, but the cops came and shot him and it cost me $275, and I said, why didn’t you just let me take him out in the desert and shoot him myself, cause it wouldn’t have cost me $275 and at least that way I would have known, you know?” Well, about then, I decided that I could just wait in my car, so I left.
And about half an hour later, before I was completely frozen, Johnny showed up. And we put all my stuff in his car, but he was still really tired, so he wanted me to drive. But his car seat is kind of stupid and it doesn’t like to go forward very much, so I had to stuff both of our coats behind my back so I could reach all the pedals, which seemed like kind of an important thing.
When we got home, Johnny grabbed his coat, but when I put mine on, I found out that I had his coat and he had mine, but he looked so silly wearing my coat that it cheered me up, so it didn’t seem so bad after all.
And the next day, Chuck and Johnny went back in and got my car to an auto repair shop and they replaced a heater core hose, and my car has been working great ever since.
So that was my day. Top THAT if you can.

UltraMom

St. Patrick’s Day. March 17, 1973. UltraMom and UltraDad’s first date. I can hear you “oohing and aahing” already. Isn’t that sweet? Yes, yes it is. We seem to have a penchant for marking events in our lives with major holidays. After all, our wedding anniversary is Feb 2 on Groundhog’s Day. It all happened a little something like this…..........

Set the scene: I was in my first year of college at Idaho State University in Pocatello, about 50 miles from where my family lived in Idaho Falls. UltraDad was newly discharged from the Army, and had , with his brother Chuck, bought a dairy farm in Howe, Idaho. His parents had recently retired, also to Howe. I had become good friends with UDad’s sister, also called Kathy, and we went to each other’s houses sometimes on weekends. Her family was really nice, especially her brother, John. My own brothers tended to, at best, ignore me, but John was different. He was very considerate to his little sister, and even more so to her friend. He went out of his way to spend time with us, playing games, saddling horses and taking us fishing and on picnics. He volunteered to drive us back to college or pick us up from (neither of us had a car). I wished he were my brother…........

The invitation: I was intrigued to open my mailbox one day and find a card addressed to me in the neatest printing I had ever seen. The return address was Howe, ID, and it was a cute, funny card from my friend’s brother. I can’t remember exactly what the card said now, but I’m sure I still have it around here somewhere. But the gist of it was that he was asking me if I would go out with him. At first I was totally taken aback, and it took a while to adjust my thinking from “cool brother” to “possible date.” I tried to discuss it with Kathy, but she just shrugged and said “If you want to go, go.” I did, so I did.

The date: John picked me up at my parent’s house in Idaho Falls on the evening of March 17. As befitting the date I dressed entirely in …....purple! Actually, I guess I didn’t think about it, and in case you’re wondering, there were no pinching consequences. John was far too considerate (and shy and nervous) to attempt such a thing. Besides, I don’t think he wore green either, but I don’t really remember. I had on a lavendar long-sleeved shirt with a darker lavendar jumper, and my hip-length honey-blond hair was tied back with a purple ribbon. My parents inquired as to our plans, and John said he thought perhaps dinner and a movie. My mother helpfully asked if I hadn’t mentioned that I would like to see the Alice in Wonderland movie then playing. Well, I HAD mentioned it, and I DID want to see it, but I was still totally mortified, and denied it vehemently. We ended up seeing the romantic comedy “Jeremiah Johnson”. For those of you who are from another planet and have never seen that Robert Redford movie, I was making a little jest. It is actually a mountain-man drama with lots of killing and revenge, a far cry from Alice in Wonderland, but I enjoyed it all the same. For dinner, we went to the gourmet restaurant of McDonald’s for their Big Macs and fries. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was my idea, or maybe John wanted to go to a restaurant that shared his last name? Anyway, I had a little problem with the straw dispenser, and spilled straws all over the floor.

The aftermath: I don’t know. That was a long time ago. I guess we must have had a very good time, because we continued to go out. And he continued to give us rides to and from college, and took me on wonderful fishing trips and hikes, sometimes with and sometimes without the sister. I remember one time when he drove his sister back, and I had stayed at school for the weekend. He took us out to Shakey’s for pizza. I was starving, cause I hadn’t eaten much that weekend. My campus meal ticket was only good for weekdays, and I was fairly thrifty, so I tended to eat as little as possible when I was there for the weekend. Consequently, when that pizza came, I dug right in. John hardly ate any, but was completely enthralled with the old-time black and white flicks they were showing; old “3 Stooges, Little Rascals, Larel and Hardy”, that sort of thing. I’m not sure I had ever heard him laugh so much. Me? I was too busy eating. I learned later that he really didn’t even like pizza.

The after-aftermath: So, on Groudhog’s Day this year, we had been married for 31 years. I still haven’t seen Alice in Wonderland.

Sentimentally yours,

UltraMom

Dating: Summer 1973

The Wedding: Feb 2, 1974

31st Anniversary, Feb 2, 2005