Courtship of Miss Ohnsman

 

Date:   1/9/2021

Dad Joke:    My friend drove his expensive car into a tree.  (Pause) He found out that Mercedes bends.

More to Do than can ever be Done….

·         Event Horizon:  Met Janet Lee Ohnsman in the fall just before her 18th birthday.

·         This was in the living room of the Newman Center – the off-campus housing I was living in.

·         I was vacuuming the house – a sign presaging the clean-aholic I have become.

·         I don’t recall what she was wearing – she was with a friend Eileen (?).

·         I know she smiled at me and, although unbeknownst to me just then, my life’s course altered.

·         (I was wearing one of those old white tank-top T shirts – aka “Wife Beaters” – and gym shorts.

·         Shortly thereafter we bumped into each other in a hallway and we shared greetings and she smiled again.   From that moment on, I was irrevocably smitten.

·         Our subsequent courtship had a few highlights:  As a breakfast cook in the college cafeteria, I would make her special ham and cheese omelets that we shared after my shift ended.    Also, we would go to a local dairy / soda fountain where I got the best tin-roof sundaes ever.   Perhaps it was the shared company!

·         (During one busy breakfast, I cracked and cooked a record 360 dozen scrambled eggs!) (I was recognized as the “ace” of scrambled eggs by the other cooks.)

·         (Understand that from my Farm days, through college breakfast cooking, through my entire career, I have been an early riser.   This continues to this day.   Early to bed and early to rise.  I can’t believe that people function after 9 PM in the evening.) [note from Mom: Or that they can sleep past 6!!]

·         In my memories, there is another major defining moment in our growing relationship.  This was during a cold morning walk back to the Newman Center.   In the Rose Garden of the Center, under low skies with light snowfall, we both somehow knew that we were going to marry each other.  I did not have an engagement ring, nor did I get on my knee and formally ask her if she would marry me – but my recollection of that moment is that “she said yes to me and me to her”.

·         Then came more courting, getting on with college years, and a wedding…

More to follow of the Ohnsman / Bassier Saga.

There you have it for now.

TAB

 

P.S.:   Though it is now 50 years ago, I still have, though rarely wear, a heavy winter parka (army surplus).   This parka has huge high pockets that were perfect for walking arm in arm with her hand clasped in mine.  She remembers these occasions and recalls she was mostly on my left side holding my left hand in the high pocket.

Comments

  1. kwithJanuary 11, 2021 at 8:35 AM

    You are still 100% the ace of scrambled eggs. Till the day one of us dies, though, I will continue my mission to overtake you as the omelette master of the family.

    ReplyDelete

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