today is valentine's day

Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love. (Ecclesiastes 9:9)

Today is Valentine’s Day, our 40th together. we had a couple before while I was in the army, but they were apart.

Valentine’s Day brings back so many memories.

Our first one was in Germany. We had only been married a month. The love we had for each other was so new. I don’t remember what all we did, but it was done, not only as it would in a new marriage (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), but also in a whole different country. It was great.

None of the Valentine’s Days really stand out, though.

There was the one in which we were together after being apart for a couple of months. It was a bittersweet reunion. It is bitter because you realize that the separation made the reunion better, it was sweet because I realized I loved her again.

There were 38 others, again none of which particularly stand out. We never did a lot for Valentine’s Day, despite the commercial establishments’ fervent desire that we do. We have found that love is not bought, but celebrated in different ways than what the stores want.

One of the commercials on TV that I particularly hate is the Kay’s Jewelers’ commercial. “Every kiss begins with Kay.” I suppose that if you had a relationship with a prostitute or one like that it would be true. But my wife loves me in spite of the fact that I have never been able to get her the things I would like to get her. That love is far more valuable than that which can be bought with a diamond.

We met in February of 1969. There was a youth night at one of the gospel meetings in the Houston area – Pecan Park Church of Christ, at the time one of the major churches in the Houston area. As they did after every youth gathering, the kids went out somewhere to do something. It could be bowling, putt-putt golf (big at the time), skating, whatever. They had reserved a bowling alley that night, as there were several hundred kids coming.

I had trouble finding the bowling alley – Pasadena Lanes – and just as I was about to give up, I saw the sign. My little brother, Gerald, was with me. he was only 15 so I was ready to dump him somewhere. Clint Eastwood didn’t travel into town with a little brother, after all. I have no idea what happened to him that night. He went home with me, but I do not remember his presence at all.

I walked into the door of the bowling alley and surveyed the situation. You can imagine the theme from Good, Bad and Ugly in my head. I was not a particularly brave guy. In fact, I was then and am now fairly shy. So I didn’t really know how to insert myself into situation where I might meet girls.

A lady named Betty Richter came over to me and asked, are you alone? I said yes. She picked me up almost bodily and plopped me down into the midst of five girls. And I married one.

I knew the minute I saw her that I wanted to know her better. I am not sure why. She asked me again the other day why that was, and I said again that I didn’t know. With me it was love at first sight. With her, it took a while. She had never dated to speak of and had had a bad experience somewhere in the past with a jerk looking for an easy score.

Needless to say, she wasn’t an easy score and he never called back. He drove a 1967 fast back Mustang. No reason to point that out except that she did when she mentioned him. That summer, when we were with a group of her friends at a ball game, one of them pointed him out to me. I don’t know if they wanted me to go over and pound him or not, but I restrained myself.

We courted over the summer. I had a good job with the telephone company as a coin collector, taking money out of pay phones. It was not particularly demanding but was endlessly interesting. you saw everywhere and everybody in that job and I liked it, especially as a 19 year old.

Her friends were amazed. She was the quiet girl who never went out and all of a sudden she had, not only a boyfriend, but an older boyfriend who had a job and car and apartment (which she would never go to out of fear – I could not get her to step foot in that apartment, not sure why).

But I got drafted late that summer and went to Germany. I came home on leave from Fort Gordon in December of 1970 and gave her a ring. She went back to the short end of the semester that was such a stupid idea at colleges at the time engaged to be married. Her friends were somewhat astounded.

Again, the quiet girl was the first to be engaged and the first to get married. For which I was grateful.

Looks considered, there were better looking girls at the bowling alley that night. Not that she was bad looking. She had a quiet inner beauty and a pure beauty on the outside. Couple that with the fact that she was good looking, too, and she was a catch.

If I had it to do again, I would marry her again. I truly love her. Thanks be to God.