Oh to be young and in love. Not that being old and in love is bad, but I sure like that younger part these days. When I was young and in love, I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know about love. Now that I am older, I just don’t remember what I knew. Nonetheless, sharing your life with a woman you can’t live without is the thrill of a lifetime-especially when you are convinced your lives will accomplish more together than they ever could alone.
I am not sure how I caught my wife. I didn’t do myself any favors along the way. Few know what she has put up with as we have matured together.
Before we were married, I worked in Washington D.C. while she attended “THE” University of Oklahoma. Once married, we planned to live in Maryland. Rather than rent a truck, I determined to buy a cheap pickup truck to haul her belongings back to our new home.
I purchased a 20-year-old Ford pickup for a whopping $350! It needed paint, and springs were poking through the seat cushions, but I was convinced this was just what we needed to start our new life together.
Once on the highway, I wanted to see what my new ride could do. My brother followed in my fianc‚’s car. As the speedometer showed 70 M.P.H., the hood blew up, off and over the top of the pickup.
My brother’s eyes looked like silver dollars as the hood flew through the air. It eventually landed, but not without a fantastic display of sparks and dust. We laughed, grateful no one was killed. Wasting no time, we loaded the hood in the back of the pickup truck and headed to the university to show off my new prized possession. To this day, I can’t believe my wife claimed me as I revved the engine of my hoodless, dual exhaust, mean-lean-moving machine just outside her sorority house.
In a matter of weeks, we were married. Our belongings were piled high in the back of the pickup truck complete with plywood sideboards and tarps. Did I mention the Chevrolet pickup truck-bed trailer I purchased as well? Yes, it too sported homemade sideboards. Oh the looks we received as we headed east to our nation’s Capital.
People actually slowed down to take extended looks at our little road show. No doubt, they must have thought we were straight out of the Grapes of Wrath, only heading the wrong direction of course!
We survived the journey, and in the end, I sold the rig and profited $1,000! We felt rich in our small studio-style apartment complete with a black-and-white, rabbit-ears TV from TG&Y.
The truck is long gone, but the girl of my dreams is still by my side. I know what Solomon meant when he wrote Proverbs 5:18, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.” Blessed I have been and rejoice I must as I grow old day-by-day with the wife of my youth.
