Going Steady

Now, it will take a certain age group of you to know what "Going Steady" means because the kids have not used this expression for many years.

This is the story of my husband and I from the time we met for the first time until we met and fell in love many years later. Bare with me as there is more story than pictures.

My family and I moved to California from Illinois in a Ford pick-up pulling a trailer that we lived in, (not mobile home) when I was 10 years old. I was in 4th grade and although we moved alot, I still never liked starting a school in the middle of the year.  This was my lucky year though.  My future husband was in my class. We also were in the same class in 5th grade and then 6th grade. 

You'd never know it to look at me now, but I was always pretty good in sports all the way through high school.  Dennis (future hubby) was very athletic and competive also. He started picking me to be his partner in 4-square. I know, that dates me too. Do kids even play 4-square anymore? Anyway, we became 4-square champs and that started what our teacher called "boy-girl stuff".

On Valentines Day, 1958, Dennis asked me to "Go Steady" with him and gave me a necklace with a heart on it.

It had a different chain which later broke, but we went steady until the last day of school. He broke up with me because my family and I were moving to Utah for the summer. I gave him back my beautiful necklace.

I wish I could find the picture of our 6th grade "last day of school party". We were quite the pair. Dennis was a full head shorter than I was(he is now over 6ft)....had a flat top, duck tail, collar turned up and levis with the cuffs rolled up. I had curly black hair down to my waist and always in a dress my mom had made.

If you ask him today why he asked me to go steady, he will say it is because I was the biggest (tallest) girl in school and I was a good 4-square player.

We moved back from Utah in October of that year and I went to a different Jr. HS and HS than Dennis did. I alway knew where he was though, because he played 3 sports and was in the sports page often with stories of his successes as quarterback (usually pictured with a cheerleader) and homerun hitter, etc.

There was surely no reason for him to know where I was though, but at the beginning of our 2nd semester at Jr. College....Feb. 1966, I believe God put him literally in my path. We almost knocked each other down walking to  classes.  I went to my apt. that night and told my roommate "I met the man I am going to marry today" I don't know how I knew that, but I did and I told her the story of our childhood "romance".

Shortly after that, I had a friend who was dating a friend of his set up a blind date.  We had fun and I knew what I wanted.  He asked me to go out with him on Valentines and when he picked me up, he gave me a box with the same heart that I had given back to him, which was now on a charm bracelet.  We went to Hollywood Pantages Theater and saw the premier of "My Fair Lady"

As they say "The rest is history" We were again "Going Steady" and  on Valentines Day 1967, he took me to Hollywood again to see "Hawaii" At dinner afterwards he asked me to marry him and gave me a box, this time with an engagement ring in it.  We were married in June, 1968.

A few weeks ago, as I was cleaning out some drawers, I found my precious litte heart and wanted to show it to my grandkids and tell them this story. Putting it in words here helped my thoughts and I will have it for them to read now too.

As we celebrated Valentine's Day today with Church, lunch and  just our everyday stuff, I have to say

"He still takes my breath away" as he did so many years ago.