Recently I said I knew Poppie was it the moment I saw him, he didn't at first.

I meant Poppie on the the 22 of October in 1979.  I joined the YACC program at Lakeside with a friend of mine.  I had just came back from living with my Grandpa Jim in Lewiston, Id in September.  I had lived with him from shortly after graduation in May to September.  My Grandma Gladys had died the November before and he was lonely and needed someone to live this him.  They had been married 44 years and he was missing my grandmother deeply.  During the time I spent with him he decided to remarry to a family friend.  The family friend was and is a remarkable lady.  She wasn't married as a young person due to a long relationship that ended up with the man she loved finally moving on and getting married to another.  She married her dear friends widower when she was about 40 and together they raise his 7 kids.  She didn't have any children of her own as she felt 40 was to old, back then maybe it would have been to have been a first time momma.  She outlived her husband and was a widow at about the same time as my granddad.  They were married on the same day as I went on my first date with Poppie.  She has since outlived my granddad, she remarried to her sister's husband when her sister passed on and has now has outlived him.  She is a wonderful grand dame and still living independently in her later nineties.  She brought love and companionship to so many children, grandchildren and widowers, it seemed to have been her calling in life.  She is a beautiful loving soul.

Anyway, I meant Poppie in October of 1979.  He was laying on the floor when I first saw him.  He was the longest skinniest boy I ever mean.  He was so sad looking and he just seemed to be alone.  I think that I loved him in the matter of a heart beat.  I do know that something about him called to my heart in a second.  He thought I had a bunch of kids and kids that weren't nice.  My mom had drove me to the campus of the YACC, and we were sitting in the TV room waiting for my dad to come rescue her and the kids.  The kids were my two sisters, Drama and Baby Sister, as well as two kids that she was babysitting.  They were all running and jumping like the little mudwumpys they were, Poppie just looked like a hurdle to them.  Eventually Poppie got tired of the kids and left.  I meant him again the next day.  I sat down by him in the cafeteria.  A couple of my friends sat down with me.  We soon took up a conversation.  He asked if any of us wanted to go with him to the Blue Moon bar on Friday.  Two of us thought we would.  Friday night came and we were going to go when Poppies car wouldn't start so  we were helping him push start it.  The other girl was in front of me and didn't tell Poppie a wall was coming toward the door she was standing in.  We hit the wall and ruined the door. Poppie wired it shut.  The other girl decided she didn't want to go in a car with a wired shut door,  I won by default and that was the last girl, other than me, Poppie asked to go anywhere with him.  I think Poppie started to see me as someone of interest when I didn't leave him alone in a parking lot with a messed up passenger door. 

We dated from October to February, Poppie had asked me to marry him in December.  It was funny that not an hour before he had asked me he told me he was never getting married, he wasn't the marrying kind.  He had a change of heart for some reason as we were going back to the YACC from Kalispell, we were driving through Summers when he said he would like to spend to rest of his life with me and that he loved me.  I accepted and have held him to it everyday since.  We were to get married in March, Poppie took Silver with him to asked his mom if she and her husband would come to the wedding.  Poppie was either so excited or scared that he ran into a car in downtown Kalispell, totalling his car.  Silver hit his head on the window and had a reoccurring bump on his head for several years.  I had to take moms car, the one that the kids had missed up the day I meant Poppie, to go rescue them.  We were married three days later, Poppie had a broken nose, could barely walk as he had an injured leg, come to think of it the same one that the tree fell on and crushed when he had his accident,  hmmmm.   I digress.  We were married in a little ceremony, just my family, two of my friends and one of their boyfriends,  the funeral parlor owner and his wife (friends of my mom),  the preacher and his wife.  We were married in the funeral home, it later became a church so we started something way back then and we were the first to be married there, funny how that happened.  We had a small reception at mom and dads and then Red drove us from Plains to Superior and dropped us off.  We started our lives with a job, a rental and nothing but love.  A love that was new and had room to grow, to strengthen and mature.  We were kids in many many ways not yet grown, we raised each other and became better people in the process. 

An aside, about two weeks after we got married Poppie had gotten an old beater car and was going to work.  He had been gone about a half an hour when he came through the door.  It was March, it was cold and he was wet from head to toe.  I was aghast and wondering what was going on.  He said he had run out of gas on the way to work and was walking home, he didn't want anyone to see him walking on the bridge, have no idea to this day why, and so he walked across the creek, he fell in and cut his shin to the bone on a rock.  I looked at my bedraggled love and couldn't help it I laughed, and laughed until I couldn't breath.  He was not impressed he felt I should have sympathize with him.  He was wet, he was hurt, and he was late for work.  I told him it was funny, he was wet and cold and hurt because he was stupid enough to wade across the creek in the winter because someone might see him on the road.  I think that that was the first inkling that he had that I did love him, but that maybe I was not going to let me be a little boy his whole life, and that maybe it was time to grow up and take life head on and face responsibility.  We started our relationship with me being in control about 90 percent of the time, and now through a process of many years of each of us growing up, and maturing we have an equal and loving marriage.  Though many of you wouldn't belief it, even then, with one word from him, I respected and obeyed not because I was made to but because I loved him and wanted to.... tomorrow.