How My Parents Got Together

My dad interned in my mom's hometown. It's a very small town and there's not much to do for fun. He picked up cycling there and became friends with the owners of a local bike shop. While chatting with them one day he complained that he was "tired of apologizing on dates for not drinking or smoking." Soon after that they set him up with my mom, who was a good girl home from her last year of college for Christmas break. She went to my dad's work to scope him out before they went out. There's a six year difference in age between my parents and a funny story about their courtship concerns my dad asking my mom if he could kiss her the night before she went back to school and her laughing him off the doorstep. Had my mom not returned home to her parents' the summer after she graduated, my parents would never have seen each other again. They dated the whole summer of 1976 while my mom looked for a job. When she found one in a town a few hours away, my dad helped her move. Her parents were concerned with how it would look for my dad to stay the night at her new apartment, so he slept in an empty field just outside of town after moving her in. The following morning my dad awoke to the sound of gunfire overhead and learned that he was actually on a rifle range. My parents maintained a long-distance for nine months. The next Christmas, my dad visited my mom's parents to ask for her hand in marriage. He proposed in a shopping mall parking lot after waiting a whole day to find the perfect moment. He used a Snoopy ring and my mom loved it so much she was a little disappointed when she finally got her diamond. Much to her family's chagrin, my dad wanted to get married in another small town that happened to be a day's drive from any of her relatives. My wife and I were married in the same place, 36 years later. My dad says my mom was so nervous, she took a valium the night before their wedding. That's where the similarities between our weddings end.