Memories

..of long ago

May 8, 2008 (Thursday)

A couple of weeks ago, I drove up to the Woodlands, to the home of my daughter, Dianna Hinze, and her lovely family. She served me lunch at her table, and then we got in her car and she drove us to Lake Limestone, to the home of Ann Walston, Wanda’s sister. Ann then drove us to Waco, where we visited with June Shipper, the daughter of Wanda’s Aunt Myra, who had died. Later that evening, after attending visitation at the funeral home, Ann drove us back to her home where we stayed the night. The next day, Dianna drove herself and me to the funeral in Waco, then to the cemetery in Kosse, and then back to her home in the Woodlands. On the way, we stopped at Centerville for supper.
When we got to Centerville, I asked her to drive on into town, to see the restaurants we might choose from. We found a café on old Highway 75, but it was closed. “That’s where I proposed to your mother,” I told Dianna.
After Wanda’s death, I was going through her things, and found a box of old letters. They were all from me. I didn’t know it, but she had kept every letter or note I had sent her through the years. Among the letters was an index card, and written on it was my proposal of marriage. Until I saw the card, I had forgotten that I had proposed by writing out the proposal and handing it to her across the table in the booth in that café in Centerville.
Dianna seemed impressed that we had stumbled on the spot where her mother and father had made the decision to get married. It was an unusual moment in our lives as we sat there thinking about it. Then we went back to the main highway and had supper at the good old Dairy Queen.
No moral to this story. Just memories. Of long ago.