Remembering June 14

June 13th, 2017  |   

It’s June 13th, and I am alone in a motel in Bloomington, IL, on my way back to Charleston. I have been on the road for almost two weeks.

I have been spending grandfather-granddaughter time. You see, I drove to Asheville, NC, to perform the wedding ceremony for Granddaughter Katherine, and then went on to Minneapolis for Granddaughter Eva’s high school graduation.

Tomorrow is June 14th, the last leg of my trip home. It is also an anniversary date linked to June 14, 1958, the day Judy and I were married.

I can’t help but smile when I think that these two granddaughter’s I have been with, and their mothers, and the entire Lewis family, would not have been around, if Judy and I had not been married fifty-nine years ago.

On top of that, I have to laugh out loud every time I tell someone the rather amusing way Judy and I met.

In 1954, both of us were college freshman, and seven men were paired up with seven women for a big blind date night. The woman who arranged the evening was responsible for deciding the pairing. As Judy would tell it, this woman was actually practically blind. Almost nose to nose with Judy, she said, “I think you would be good for Jim.”

Two weeks after Judy and I were married, we found ourselves in Quantico, Virginia. Leaving Judy in a nearby motel, I reported for basic training, with an eventual deployment to Southeast Asia as a infantry platoon commander. As I think about the precarious state of the world back then, there is a stunning similarity to what is taking place today.

While driving tomorrow, I intend to stay away from radio news. There will be plenty of time for that when I get back to my routines at home. While driving today, I listened to Jeff Sessions ramble on about what he can’t recall. Tomorrow, I will listen to music and think about that wedding 59 years ago, and certainly feel grateful for that woman with poor vision who somehow could see which woman would be good for me.

Entry Filed under: Fig Tree Notes Archives