30 Years Ago

I met this man.

We must have spent five or six hours talking to each other that Saturday night and on into the wee hours of Sunday morning.   While talking we discovered that we shared the same birthday.  Dave is exactly five years older than I am.

He asked me to have supper with him on our birthdays in a week and a half’s time.   Now Dave had been drinking just a teeny bit and so I told him that if he remembered; to call me at work Monday morning and ask me again.

I told him where I worked on base.   I didn’t even tell him what extension I was at; just where I worked.   Truth to tell… I didn’t expect to hear from him because as I mentioned he’d had a few.

But first thing Monday morning, I’d barely gotten sat down at my desk when the phone rang.   It was Dave calling to remind me that we had a date for our birthdays.   I was flattered that he remembered.  And I was certainly attracted to him.   If he’d asked me out for any other day, I would have said yes, right away.

But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend my birthday with him.  After all… birthdays are special and what if that initial spark wasn’t there when we met again to have supper on our birthdays?   A person only turns 19 once!

So to hedge my bets, I suggested that he come along with me on a little Christmas shopping trip I had planned for Thursday evening to Camrose.   It’s about a 2 hr drive from Wainwright to Camrose and I figured in the time it took to drive there, go shopping and drive back, I’d have a much better idea who this Cpl Flemming was.

Thursday after work, I picked him up at the single men’s quarters and off we went to Camrose for late night shopping.  (Even today, in small town Alberta, Thursday evening the shops stay open until 9 pm.)

Just as there had been on the previous Saturday night, there was an ease between us that I’ve never felt with anyone else before or since.  We talked the whole way to Camrose and back.  We talked about our families, our work, our dreams for the future.  We talked politics and religion.

Dave was (and continues to be) the most fascinating person I know.    When we got back to Wainwright later that evening, I asked him where we were going for supper on our birthdays.

The years have sped by so fast and have taken us through marriage, parenthood and raising three amazing children, his army career which included two NATO peacemaking tours and his second career after retiring from the army.

We’ve lived in three different countries; Canada, Germany and the US.   We’ve travelled through almost every province and state in Canada and the US and lived in a few of them.  Even looking back over all that’s happened and all the adventures we’ve had… it doesn’t seem possible that it’s been 30 years.

What an amazing journey we are having together!  I’d do it all over again but more important I’m looking forward to all the adventures we have ahead of us.

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