We spent today with our friends Pete and Nancy enjoying every minute until they had to leave for the airport for their flight home to Columbus. We let them choose our activities and they decided on a trip to Branson since they hadn’t been there since they moved away in 2001.
We drove to the scene of the new airport – or as close as we could get – and also looked at Murderer’s Rock Golf Course where Burl and I plan to play soon. Then we headed to Branson Landing and spent most of our time just strolling along the waterfront and then navigating the foot traffic on the main promenade. Unfortunately for the merchants, we didn’t set foot in one single shop!
We opted for lunch at the White River Fish Co. and were rewarded with a table with a fabulous view of the lake and yummy fish – and since Burl and I had mahi mahi we are betting it wasn’t caught fresh this morning in Lake Taneycomo!
Best of all we had several hours to just relax and visit which is really what we wanted to do all along – the trip to Branson was just a sideline to our being together. I met Nancy in 1998 when we were both teaching for Webster University and within a few short months she was director of the University and I was ready to quit after having a bad experience with the former director. Nancy came to my office and heard my story, righted all the wrongs and in the meantime we ascertained that a) we both love to bicycle; b) we both love to drink wine and c) we were neighbors! She said she still has the card where she wrote all this information about me.
Soon the 3 of us were biking together regularly and I was invited to their next Petefest where I realized we had several mutual friends. Peter became the head of my “search committee” and vowed he would find the perfect man for me although he admitted it would not be an easy task. Imagine my disappointment when Nancy appeared unannounced at my office to tell me they were moving back to Ohio to help take care of aging parents. They left in the summer of 2001 and I was now on my own to find the perfect man!
I met Burl on December 13, 2001 and he asked me out for the following Saturday – however, Pete and Nancy were coming to Springfield and had invited me to dinner so I told Burl “no” – an answer he certainly didn’t like! On that Saturday he did take me ice skating and when a skater knocked me down, I lay on the ice for almost an hour and then spent the rest of the afternoon in ER before being released just in time for him to take me home so I could clean up and still meet Pete and Nancy for dinner.
Imagine my surprise when they told me they had been at the ice rink that day and even took a photo of the me on the ice with orange cones all around me – they just didn’t realize who I was due to how I was positioned! That photo is now framed and in our living room – one of their wedding gifts to us almost a year later. They remember that evening at Gilardi’s as I giddily told them all about Burl and they were in shock that I was so excited about a guy I had just met.
Although they couldn’t attend our wedding, they did come to Springfield a few weeks before the event, treated us to dinner at Gilardi’s and finally met Burl. By then he had heard so much about them that he felt like he knew them well and they instantly bonded. Needless to say, our friendship has deepened despite the distance between us and Nancy is the only friend with whom I correspond by snail mail. Yep, we write actual letters to each other which I cherish so much more than emails.
We may not see them again until next spring but in the meantime we’ll keep in touch regularly and then just pick right back up from where we left off today.
