17 Years Ago Today...

A little over seventeen years ago, I had just returned to Minnesota after a Spring Break trip to visit my family in Washington State.

That's my sister Jami with me (on the left) in each of these photos. (If I had a dollar for every strip of photos I'd had taken in the Kmart photo booth, I'd probably have been able to pay my way through college then, instead of still. I loved those things!)

There we were, goofing off just before Kmart closed that Saturday night, with me patting myself on the back for already having my stuff all packed and ready to go for my flight out the following morning.

When I called to confirm my flight early Sunday morning, the kind lady at Northwest Airlines told me, "Ahhh, miss, it appears that you've missed your flight."

"WHAT?!" I squawked, in disbelief.

Apparently I'd overlooked the whole AM part of my itinerary, and had missed my flight by several hours.

Through panicked tears, I pleaded with the woman over the phone, explaining my predicament, and that I absolutely had to get back to college or I could lose placement in some vital classes for my major, and that I couldn't afford a whole other ticket because I was just barely making ends meet as it was, and that either my college career would be doomed, or I would be relegated to eating saltine crackers and ramen noodles for the next three months if I had to buy a new ticket...

$50 dollars later, she was able to reschedule my missed flight, and we were forced to dash to the airport the minute I got off the phone if I was to catch it on time.

Early Sunday afternoon, my Uncle Mark and my Cousin Tiffany came to the airport to pick me up, and while on the drive back to my college, Tiffany announced that some guy named Jeff had called the house several times looking for me.

Because I'd lived at my aunts house for a year before starting college, their address and phone number were the ones that ended up in the college face book as my home numbers.

"Jeff?" I asked, my heart skipping a beat. Could it be? Had that studmuffin football player/campus security guard called moi?

I could barely contain my joy. "Are you serious?" I asked my startled young cousin.

"Uh....yeah." Clearly, she was oblivious to the importance of such news.

But then my heart sank remembering a trivial but very important little detail that put me in a bit of a predicament.

Which Jeff?

Just before leaving for Washington, I'd learned through the grapevine that there were two different guys, both named Jeff, that were interested in me.

I asked my cousin a couple more questions, trying to narrow down whether or not it was the Jeff that I was interested in, or the other guy.

Had he left a name? No.
Had he left a phone number? No.
What did he sound like? I dunno.

Big help, Tiff. But then, she was like 11 or 12 at the time and didn't pay attention to such important details.

So I worried for the rest of the drive back to campus about what I was going to do if it was the Jeff I was not interested in who had called, and how I would ever get over the disappointment if the one I was interested in never did call me.

It was all kind of wishful thinking anyway, because for all I knew, it might just as easily have been my cousin Jeff who was due to be shipped off to the Persian Gulf with the Military at any time, and who my dad had mentioned had been calling around to say his goodbyes to the fam.

How odd to have so many Jeff's in one's life all at once confusing matters.

When I got to the college, much to my dismay there were no messages for me either on my answering machine, or at the Student Center desk.

So I went shopping.

I'd just put in my two weeks notice as a cosmetics consultant at JCPenney's, and wanted to use the money my grandma had given me while I'd been home on a new outfit or two before my employee discount ran out.

As it turned out, I happened upon a fantastic spring sale, and was able to get three new outfits, two of which were suits that I'd be able to wear to church. I was ecstatic.

A couple of hours later I returned to campus, hoofed it in from the far parking lot, my purchases over my arms, dreamy thoughts swirling through my head about when and where I'd wear my new clothes and how I'd style my hair. Suddenly I see the gray campus security van pull to a stop alongside me on the one-way road in front of the building.

I glance up and see Jeff. The Jeff that I had so hoped was the one who had called my aunts house looking for me!

He had rolled down the window and was leaning out slightly, smiling.

Be still my heart!

He called to me over the sound of the van motor, "Hi, Becky."

My throat suddenly felt dry, and my hands went all clammy.

"Hi" I replied shyly.

"I tried calling you a couple of times over Spring Break, but I must have had the wrong number or something."

"Oh?" I croaked out, knowing what was coming, my heart doing really funny things inside my chest.

Just then, I see some of Jeff's buddies, Chad and Dean-O, walking towards us on the sidewalk. They glanced up and saw Jeff in the van. They smiled and nodded in the way of guys sending signals meant to egg each other on. Dean-O called out, "Just do your job, man...just do your job."

I knew they were razzing him, and could sense Jeff's embarrassment. But it gave me a moment's reprieve to collect myself and try and swallow the nervous lump in my throat.

When the door closed behind them, I turned back and found him smiling that drop dead gorgeous smile of his once again, and my heart fluttered yet again.

I later learned that during this precise moment, Jeff was pressing his already buff bicep against the van door, hoping to make it look even bigger, lol.

I was suitably impressed.

"I, uh...I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime?"

By now, my heart was flipping around like a fish on the riverbank. Or maybe it was the butterflies in my stomach all flying upward at the same time, pounding against my heart...nevertheless, it produced all manner of nervous sensations inside of me.

Plenty of guys had asked me out before, but always, and I mean always, I knew right off the bat it was a one-time deal. Sometimes I would dread going out with the guy, and would suffer through a lame date simply because I didn't have the guts to decline.

But this...this was different. From the very first moment.

No, with Jeff, there was no revulsion whatsoever.

Nothing that turned me off, or yea, even repulsed me to the point I wanted nothing to do with the guy afterward. Like the new guy on campus who jumped out from behind a tree while I was walking late to class one morning and scared the bejeepers out of me. Or the guy who parked his can on my sofa during visiting hours and expected that I would cook for him on my one, thin dime (while his parents paid his way through college). Or the really enthusiastic guy with the white eyebrows who had a tendency to spit when he talked. Or the other guy, who though a sweetheart, was about a foot shorter than I was, and had a unibrow and poor table manners. Or my 'secret brother', who after the big 'reveal' made it known that he liked me, but unknowingly sealed his own doom when he didn't wipe the mayonaise off the corner of his mouth one day at lunch.

No, with Jeff, I knew right off, from the moment we'd caught eyes at the basketball game that there was nothing like that standing in the way with him.

Everything about him was perfect. And attractive. And I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the entire world the moment he smiled at me.

"Um, sure...that sounds good."

And so it was set.

My roomies Lynette and Mary will try and tell you that I came back to our dorm, cast aside my purchases and jumped up and down on my bed as I excitedly screeched the news to them...but I couldn't possibly have been as juvenile as all that.

Or, ahem, maybe I was. It's been so long ago now, I scarcely remember...

In any case, 17 years ago today, we were sitting in Baker's Square, on our first date, where we talked for four hours straight over a slice of Brownie Pie with vanilla ice cream.

And late the evening of that momentous occasion, smitten as I was, I floated into my dorm room my feet not quite touching the ground and told my roomies all about how wonderful Jeff was.

That night, as I lay in bed trying to get to sleep after such excitement, the words of a poem kept coming back to me, tugging at the corners of my mind, until I was forced to get up and retrieve the book I had found it in.

Rhapsody

(as found in the book Julie, by Catherine Marshall)

My Love is come

and stars are bright

melody flows

from out the night

The little bear shouts

the dipper drips wine,

all of this beauty

is mine, is mine

Let dawning be red

as fair as that day

when my Love will come

to stay, to stay

The trees are dancing

in rhythmical sway,

and this is the tune

they play, they play:

My love is come

and stars are bright

melody flows

from out the night.

And I knew, without a doubt...he was the one.