A Worth The While Journey

It is a four plus hour trip to head to Island Lake with little more than a weekend to spend but R is able to drive great distances if Tom Petty is dialed in.  Who knew?

Brings up a great point: Where did the last 40 plus years go?  We met in the fall of 1971 and soon R would be between girlfriends (He got the Dear John) and had no desire to "Run into her in Rapids before she'd get married on his birthday!!!" So he asked if he could come to Duluth during his academy breaks.  I was now a student at UMD and soon accepted as a transfer student at Scholastica with only two ambitions.  The first to become a two year graduate (St Luke's like mom) and second to earn enough money to buy books and have something left.  Dad said he would pay tuition if I earned book money. I moved home, as dad was transferred to the Duluth Ore Docks; with the DM&IRR. (I recall a semester at CSS was $675.00.) Nursing books averaged a hundred dollars new.  My books were "USED" and I also recall two nursing instructors told me I had earned A's but since I worked I was only getting B's. "They saved the A's for nonworking students."  Nun's were always a bit twisted.
In 1995, I was working on call nights at Benet Hall (CSS's Nun Home) until R left St Mary's for St. Luke's and I got the call saying I was done, "And we hope your husband is happy at St. Luke's.
No hard feelings here. . .Saves me thousands in contributions. No longer do they call for alumni fundraising. I have paid my dues.
I spent the last two years at CSS begging mom and dad to let me quit and apply to St. Luke's.  My mother argued, "You have two years either way and four is better than two: Stay Put!" Dad said, You will be the first college graduate. " He had also had a conversation with an old boyfriend's father which didn't favor a great outcome for "Yours Truly." Dad had a few aspirations too!

R and I were friends long before lovers. Not best friends, but friends.  He doesn't know when I get a traffic ticket, impulse buy, and/or watch "Days of Our Lives." Now I have told him there were more than one occasion where I got him to the airport and/or bus stop with little time to make the movie. The "Lover Thing" would not have happened were it no for my mother. It was mother Mary who encouraged the makeup upon awaiting his arrival.  "Get upstairs and get some makeup on he is not coming to watch you peel potatoes."  I burst into tears. . . I realized I was conflicted. . . Romance with R had not been a consideration.  Big George was R's best friend.  Who wants to marry their dad's friend?

Growing up R didn't have a "Hands On Dad." R never had anyone ask him, "What do you want to do when you grow-up?" Big George and Ron could and did talk for hours. (Big George took a dad's interest in R. )  My dad could talk civil war history, naval history, geography and loved reading. When the weather forced  Air Force Academy's varsity debate team's plane to land in Duluth in the spring of 1975 they stayed with Mary and George. (Dad would walk me down the aisle June 1975 and die September 3rd of the same year. Cancer.)I had finished a semester early and was already living in Colorado Springs working as a Medical Transcriptionist and crashing the scene with R's VW Bus.

In those days CO didn't allow graduate nurses to work as RN's until license was in hand. And I don't think that was the time Jose Castro slept hugging the pedestal of the baby grand piano.  Oh, the stories!  Dad took R and friends to the Saratoga. Yes, he even brought the girls!  I think he said, "May as well see what it is all about."

Air Force Academy cadets could not marry until after graduation.  It would be several years before R would stop reminding me I was broke and penniless. The first year of Medical School R didn't get his stipend and I was the major wage earner.  When the error was found imagine our surprise at seeing the first paycheck with back pay!  We mortgaged a 21K condo and moved.

The friendship did blossom and I would introduce him to Ruben's at The Pickwick and parking on Park Point.  I boast we fell in love over Ruben's and Tom and Jerry's if the season was right. I would soon realize his humor was toned and his knowledge was honed.  He once told Keesler's graduating class of residents,  "Never take anyone's hope. . .You do not know everything,  Never stop learning, read and remember to laugh."  On a bad day, I have called R and asked him to make me laugh.

This little journey down memory lane includes four offspring, three of their spouses, four grandchildren and a menagerie of goldfish, hamsters, five dogs and one cat which would almost kill Meg who turns out is severely allergic to felines.  And friends to share it all with.

This journey has included several homes and a gnawing feeling you pay people to buy your home. Until Duluth we always did, "Buy High and Sell Low."  The only reason we still have Bear Island is because the perspective buyers tried a renegotiation in the eleventh hour and R said, "We don't have to sell it Barb!"