32 years ago today it was 15 degrees below zero. Bet you wonder how I can remember that and still not remember where I put those car keys 30 minutes ago! Very simple. 32 years ago I was living with a man named Kenneth Mercer. We had discussed marriage, but this time I really wanted to be sure, as did he, that it was meant to be. He was replacing the drive line in one of the tandem dump trucks we owned. When he went to Pueblo Brake and Clutch to pick up the repaired part they were closed. It was thier Christmas party as I recall. So he came home.
He told me he could not finish the truck and so we might as well go to Canon City and "get this shittin' mess over with.". Now what woman in her right mind could turn down a proposal like that? So off we went and to make a long story short, we got our license and then sought a minister or someone who could do the deed. I do not recall his name, but he and his wife were in the senior housing close to the court house. He mumbled a few words, caught a woman in the hall to be a witness and then had his wife, who was in the bed in the next room, sign as the second witness. Kenneth paid him $20.00 and we left to go have our wedding supper which was a donut at the donut house since neither of us were very hungry.
And thus began a friendship that would span 20 years until his death in 2003. Funny how life leads us in one direction and then another, isn't it? We were a very unlikely couple, but our wants and needs seemed compatible. His kids were grown and gone and I had 2 still at home. Mine did not need a father, but he filled the position as an adult male companion. It worked well.
I will not attempt to describe our life together. Suffice it to say when I became a widow at the tender age of 62, I thought about returning to Kansas. But, by that time Colorado was my home. I do entertain ideas of "going back" especially when things happen like losing my sister this week. Someday I may, but not now. For now Pueblo is my refuge. My port in the storm. My anchor in life's ocean.
One of my friends was by today, but I never mentioned the anniversary. An anniversary just marks a point in time that something happened. Like a dot on the timeline of life. So as I pack to go bury my sister, I just note that the temperature right now is 43 degrees. That is a difference of 58 degrees.
And life goes on.
He told me he could not finish the truck and so we might as well go to Canon City and "get this shittin' mess over with.". Now what woman in her right mind could turn down a proposal like that? So off we went and to make a long story short, we got our license and then sought a minister or someone who could do the deed. I do not recall his name, but he and his wife were in the senior housing close to the court house. He mumbled a few words, caught a woman in the hall to be a witness and then had his wife, who was in the bed in the next room, sign as the second witness. Kenneth paid him $20.00 and we left to go have our wedding supper which was a donut at the donut house since neither of us were very hungry.
And thus began a friendship that would span 20 years until his death in 2003. Funny how life leads us in one direction and then another, isn't it? We were a very unlikely couple, but our wants and needs seemed compatible. His kids were grown and gone and I had 2 still at home. Mine did not need a father, but he filled the position as an adult male companion. It worked well.
I will not attempt to describe our life together. Suffice it to say when I became a widow at the tender age of 62, I thought about returning to Kansas. But, by that time Colorado was my home. I do entertain ideas of "going back" especially when things happen like losing my sister this week. Someday I may, but not now. For now Pueblo is my refuge. My port in the storm. My anchor in life's ocean.
One of my friends was by today, but I never mentioned the anniversary. An anniversary just marks a point in time that something happened. Like a dot on the timeline of life. So as I pack to go bury my sister, I just note that the temperature right now is 43 degrees. That is a difference of 58 degrees.
And life goes on.
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