In Laramie, Wyoming – Miriam Paules and I got married on June 3, 1967 – we are still together. Amazing!!!!
On our small college campus, I noticed her for two years. I just did not have the nerve to ask her out. I was a Dumb Jock and she was a Sorority Girl – at that time, and on that campus, those two did not mix very often. Finally, in my Junior Year I did ask her out. However, a few days before the date she told me she had to cancel – said she had a cold. Well, that shot my courage for the balance of the year. To make matters worse, we had to walk by her sorority house to and from classes. When some of my friends were with me – as we walked by the house – they started coughing.
In September, of my Senior Year, I saw her in the Student Union sitting at a table with some other girls. I walked over and asked her out – she accepted. We were engaged by November but that might had been too quick – she returned the ring in February of ’67. I was devastated! I had been saving money for our honeymoon. I got a couple of my friends to go with me to Vegas – I said that I would use the honeymoon money for as long as it lasted. It turns out it lasted one day and one night; however, we did get to see the Righteous Brothers.
She lived in town because both her parents worked at the university. A few weeks following the Vegas trip – my roommate wanted me to go with him to the student health center as he thought he had caught someone from the girl he was seeing. Miriam’s mother worked there and happened to be at the check in desk. She asked me to come by the next morning to her house. Miriam lived in the Sorority House but was at home when I got there. Her mom was famous for her pies. She had a cherry pie for us – told us to go somewhere and work it out. It was an unseasonably warm day, so we decided to go to the mountains. We found a neat place – with no one around – it had a small bubbling brook and comfortable rocks where we could sit. Because of blind hope – I brought the ring with me. We sat there for hours, and she took back the ring. We never ate the cherry pie. When I got back to the dorm – one of my football teammates (who was 6’ 8” and 280 lbs – quite big for that era) asked if he could have a piece? I said sure – when I got back to the room, a little while later, he had eaten the entire pie.
As time progressed – I was getting more convinced that we were actually going to get married. I remember thinking, as she walked down the aisle towards me, that this beautiful woman was really going to marry me.
I make these “Silly Sheets” for her four times a year – our anniversary, her birthday, Mother’s Day, and Valentines Day. I stick them to our bathroom mirror during the night. She keeps them so I guess that I will keep up this tradition.
Super