This is how I remember my Annie when we were little. It is funny how much this picture reminds me of Jack, especially through the eyes. And there is also something about the smile and the sparkle in her eyes in this picture: the same one Jack gets just before he says something funny or just before he runs and jumps into my arms to tickle me.Ann wore her hair like this throughout elementary school. I never remember her crying or being mean. And Miss Maag did one thing that would have forever altered the emotional well-being of most children. The crazy second grade teacher asked Ann and Dotty to stand in front of the room one day.
"These two little girls have the hairiest legs I have ever seen." The class erupted into laughter. No one in their right mind would have said something that bizarre, something that cruel, something that heartless. It sometimes amazes me that we survived elementary school. We rode bikes without helmets, sat or even stood in the front seats of cars. Seatbelts did not exist until the 60's, and even the early ones were an optional thing you ordered in a car. We brought old rollerscates to school that clamped onto our shoes, and we used a key to tighten them. No one used a helmet. And we played hardball every day during the spring and again in the fall. Softball was for sissies. We played tackle football without pads when we were in the sixth grade.
By junior high, she looked like this in the picture below at the right. I noticed her in elementary school, and I remember being sad when I heard she and her family might move to California. But they didn't.
In junior high, Ann tells me she noticed me. I was so shy, that I couldn't really talk to people and feel comfortable about it.
In the picture above and on the right, you can see Annie and me posing, her picture for Girl's State and my picture for Boy's State. That was the summer before our senior year of high school, when Ann asked me out for the first time.
This picture was at the Senior Ball. We had been dating, and while dancing, Mary Lou Jones looked at Erma and gave some advice.
"If a boy were dancing like that with my daughter, I'd be talking to her."
Thank goodness they didn't see me doing my signature dance step: The Bear Hug. I was in love with my Annie. And the tiara here is important, because she was in the Royalty for the dance. I do not remember what it was, but as far as I was concerned, she was the one for me.
We stopped dating in January that year. And we didn't really talk until after I left on my mission.
I dated a Salt Lake City girl at BYU. She was a Sterling Scholar and was studying to be a nurse. When I left, I gave he a promise ring, something that seems so funny to me now. Because no sooner than entering the Mission Home, all word basically ceased other than an occasional letter.
Within two weeks of being in the LTM--the Language Training Mission in Provo--we were arguing in our letters. My mom sent a package with cake and cookies and all kinds of good stuff one weekend. My mother let me know in an enclosed letter that Ann delivered the package for her, and she reminded me that Ann's birthday was February 19. Ann and I began writing, and we never stopped during the next two years.
I returned in January of 1974, and our marriage was in the Salt Lake Temple on May 31, 1974. My only regret is that I didn't marry her sooner. She is the love of my life.
Whether I think of memories of when we were very young, or when we were in high school, she makes me smile. And she always will. The snapshots at the right are from one of those automated machines like they once had in malls and amusement parks.
And she still makes me smile too.
Once while on a cruise in the Bahamas, we went snorkeling. I was afraid of the water, worried about sharks and the temperature. There was a step at the back of the small boat that took us to a reef. Although they warned me to step into the water, I sat down and slid off the step. I never knew that I tore out the entire back of my swimsuit.
We swam for probably two hours, and I had the time of my life. Ann kept teasing me. She would swim close to me and pull my goggles, letting water into them. I would surface, fix it and begin again. After doing that three times, she approached for an encore.
They had given us containers of food for fish, and hundreds of small yellow, blue and black fish followed us. As Ann swam to grab my goggles, I emptied the entire container below her. I heard her squeal under the water. I guess that is what it was. "Blub, Blub, Blub!" And it may have been some choice euphemisms for me too.
When we returned to the small boat, I walked around and looked at the view. I noticed the strange reactions from fellow passengers. Annie was smiling broadly in the back. She motioned for me to come to her.
"Feel your suit." I patted the legs. "No, feel your suit." Again I patted the legs. "Let me help you." She placed my hands at the back of the suit. There was nothing but bare skin, more than most humans could tolerate during the twenty minutes I walked about the boat.
At least they didn't stare. I suppose they knew the quote by Nitsche too--"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
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