by Deb Cook Lewis
I’m one who believes that nothing is ever final. It’s here for a time and subject to change with new information and experience. This was certainly the case in my marriage — Rick and I will celebrate our 18th anniversary this year.
My husband is from Bakersfield and I’m from the Seattle area. We both had pen pals growing up, but not each other. He had girl pals, but I disdained the notion of having boys. It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?
One day a friend showed him some mail from her pen pals. He read a letter from me and sent an introduction in hopes I would want to correspond.
The letter was very nice. I wish I still had it, but I don’t. My answer was a polite but firm “no.” I don’t write to boys. And I’m somewhat offended that she let you look at her mail from me. I definitely needed to take a chill pill, but you get what you get from teen girls I guess. So that was the end of that and this wouldn’t be worth telling, but there’s more!
Fast forward 35 years. My housemate was staying up late on Saturday nights to listen to a guy on ACB Radio Interactive who knowledgeably played oldies from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I’m not nocturnal, so never heard the program, but did ask her to inquire about some items he played on the show.
He responded to her email by first saying: “Yes, I know your housemate, she said ‘no.’” I then realized this was the same guy from that high school time who was now living in Phoenix.
I did subsequently say yes to a phone conversation. And we both said yes to the opportunity to meet in person at the 2005 ACB convention.
He moved to Seattle in 2006, and we were married in May of 2007. He remembered that initial rejection pretty vividly, which I still find amusing. But in the end, the “yesses” outweighed the “no”s. Oh, and he carted around that rejection letter for about 10 years before finally misplacing it in a move. So now you know which of us is the pack rat!