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| This was the first picture of us and only picture taken before we got married |
A love story
This is a true story, it’s is my love story. It all started
one afternoon the twenty third of July 1967. My roommate and good friend and I
were walking home from the parts house with the car parts we needed to fix his
car. As we cross an intersection two girls came running after us. One that was
in the lead was an old friend of my roommates. My roommate introduced the girl
and she introduced the other girl. Now have you ever been in this situation, I
mean this was the most uncomfortable position to be in, I like what I saw and
she was his girl. I could not see the other girl. Well the four of us walk on down the street
talking and then stopping at a small café we went in and had malt. We talk for
a bit and made plans to meet and go a movie on the upcoming Saturday after we got
the car fix. The whole time I could not
take my mind of off her or eyes. We
finish our malts and parted to meet later on in the week. Please note back then
we did not have cell phone and as far as phone goes well it was out of our
budget at the time. But we did give the girls my parent s phone number and we
got the girl address.
The rest of the day kind of went like this we fix the car
then got ready for the rodeo. My roommate was selling beer at the rodeo and I
had my last ride and performance in the rodeo. Now I was to ride demonstration saddle
bonk that night and do a skit with the clowns and my horse ebb. The horse I drew was named barn burner and he
gave me quite a ride scored 87 points and it was the best ride of the rodeo. The
rodeo ran for five night and ended on the twenty fourth with the finals, I had
not made it into the last go round a kid by the name of Chris LeDoux had the
handle on that, my earlier rides did not
go so well. But the demonstration ride guaranteed my entry fee back and my skit
with the clowns paid me twenty bucks.
It was a simple thing I would play the drunken cowboy and
get out there in the arena with this five gallon plastic whiskey bottle, ( it
had tea in it), and six-gun shooting up
the sky. Then I would fall down sitting in middle with my arms around the
bottle. The clowns trying to get me out
of the arena would send my horse Ebb in and he would grab me by the collar, I was
warring a harness with a tab for Ebb to bite, and drag me out of the arena. Well
my fifteen seconds of fame and glory was over and it was back to the here and
now. The rodeo was over for me and we meet
a couple of gals at the rodeo so we went bar hopping. Now the whole time I was
thinking of the gal I met early in the day, and cliff that was my roommate and friend
, had mention how he like meeting up with her after not seeing her in a year or
two and was not going to let her out of his life. He had a thing for her. Well I
guess I was getting one.
The next week was all work and no play. I went out the place
where I kept Ebb and was put him thru his paces. We had quite a work out. I had
put up his saddle and had take him down to the stream to wash the sweat off and
decided to ride him back to the barn. I swung up on his back and slid off the
other side like it was ice, me being wet and his back just as wet. Well I dislocated
my shoulder and broke my arm. So I did not go on the date with the cliff and
the gals that Saturday.
By the time I got the cast off we had lost track off the girls
they had moved. It took a week or so to find where they had move to. We hook back up and planed an outing cliff
would be with Shana and I would be with Elle. That was not my choice Elli was a
nice enough and good lookin, but I wanted to be with Shana. Well it seems that Elli had someone else on
her mind and always had some excuse not to go on the date. We would go on with
the date and I was the fifth wheel and driver, as we had not got cliffs car
running yet.
Well our days were setup like this I worked from 7 to 3 and
cliff worked 1 to 9 we were both working for the railroad. When I got off work I
would go up to the girl’s apartment and visit till cliff would get off, and
then we would go out and do something the three of us Elli had to work from 6
to midnight. We would go and pick her up from work. This went on for two maybe
three weeks. Then the movie Grand prix
with James Garner was come to town and I want to see it. So we set up a date to
go the movies and Shana set me up with a date with one of her girl friends.
We had got cliff's car running and my dad’s truck was not the
thing you would take the gals to the driven movie in. it was a farm truck if
you know what that means. Well we pick
up Shana and were going out to pick up my date when the car broke down again. So we started to walk back in to town. Cliff was
not in a good mood as the car was broke down, and he walked a head of us. When we
got in to the down town area we decided to just go to the walk-in and see the
movie. As we walked by a bar we saw a
friend playing pinball, and he owed cliff some money and if he was playing
pinball he could pay cliff. Shana could not go in the bar she was under 21 so
her and I waited outside. Well Cliff and beer and pinball, he could be in there
all night and he was still in a bad mood over the car. Shana and I went next
door to a western supply store and I bought me a new hat, all the guy were calling
mine a sheepherder hat, and I had to buy Shana one I just had too.
Cliff was still
playing pinball so I went in and told him that we were going down to the show
and he could ketch up or meet us at the movie house. So Shana and I went to the show. After the
show there was a light rain coming down and I was walking her home. We had stop on a corner and I said “you know
if it was not for cliff I would ask you to marry me. To hell with it will you
marry me” we kiss a long time and the she said yes. We took off and twenty four later we were
married in Elko Nevada. This day forty four year ago. October first 1967 .
