{"id":1591,"date":"2020-03-01T04:41:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T22:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=1591"},"modified":"2021-06-19T20:00:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T14:00:41","slug":"how-i-met-my-wife-or-best-leap-day-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=1591","title":{"rendered":"HOW I MET MY WIFE…OR BEST LEAP DAY EVER!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, it’s February 29, Leap Day, 2020 and I thought I’d do something a little different. \"\"<\/a> A Leap Day only comes along every 4 years and for those people who celebrate their Birthday today, I say Happy Birthday.\u00a0 It is not my wife’s Birthday but the story of how I met my wife is almost like being born on February 29th.\u00a0 The stars have to align and if one thing’s off then you miss it all together.\u00a0 That could have happened to me if things had gone differently.\u00a0 Luckily for me, my Leap Day, the day I met my wife all fell into place.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First off, I’m two years older than my wife and the odds we’d end up in the same place to even meet up are astronomical.\u00a0 But wait, we actually met before we met.\u00a0 Sort of.\u00a0 I’ll get to that in a minute.\u00a0 First, I moved into residence at Peter Robinson College, at Trent University in Peterborough in September of 1982.\u00a0 It wasn’t a great experience and I moved out of residence by the end of the month.\u00a0 Voluntarily moved out or asked to leave.\u00a0 Let’s not quibble.\u00a0 For the next two years of University life I lived off campus.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I left residence I moved in a with family headed by a friend of my Dad.\u00a0 I think his name was Charlie.\u00a0 I don’t remember much else but I was sleeping on a couch in their basement family room so it wasn’t ideal.\u00a0 I then took a room in a house with a woman and her infant son.\u00a0 Her husband was working up north so I never met him.\u00a0 I do know that she make leak soup a lot and sometimes I ended up watching her son.\u00a0 I think that lasted a month before I moved into an apartment on the other side of town.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>It was a two bedroom apartment and I advertised for a roommate.\u00a0 I can’t remember the name of the guy who moved in with me but it was a bad fit.\u00a0 He was creepy and irresponsible and we had no chemistry.\u00a0 Even Oscar and Felix had chemistry of a sort.\u00a0 I think that it might have been another month then I kicked him out.\u00a0 Then a nice guy named Tim moved in and we got along.\u00a0 He had a good looking sister named Maggie but that went nowhere.\u00a0 Tim and I weren’t really close however to being lasting friends and I never saw either of them again after that year.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I moved home to Belleville in the summer of 1983 after that first year was over.\u00a0 This is significant because I got a summer job working nights at Farrar’s Texaco in Belleville.\u00a0 The Texaco is long gone but at that time it was right across the road from Burger King.\u00a0 Burger King is still there.\u00a0 I used to start work at 11pm and worked until 7am.\u00a0 Sometime between 11 and midnight this good looking blonde young woman used to ride her bike across the road from the Burger King and passed by the back of the Texaco.\u00a0 I never talked to her but I’ll get back to her.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My second year of University wasn’t all the memorable either.\u00a0 I moved into a three bedroom apartment with two Asian students, Jack and Boo Huat.\u00a0 Jack didn’t speak much English so we never talked.\u00a0 Boo Huat had a different girl every night and by the end of the school year I think there were 3 other people living with Boo Huat in his room.\u00a0 Jack had a friend name Carrie that came by occasionally and he had gone to school in Belleville so I didn’t mind him.\u00a0 He, like Jack, was originally from Hong Kong.\u00a0 One night I came home to find the living-room full of other Asian students.\u00a0 Carrie was among them so when I asked what was going on, he replied that they were all there to watch “Love Boat” because the episode had been filmed in Hong Kong and they wanted to see home and possibly faces of people they knew.\u00a0 That was probably the longest conversation I had with any of them.\u00a0 I mostly kept to myself.\u00a0 I ate every night with Jack and Boo Huat and they made amazing Asian cuisine with rice every night.\u00a0 I lost twenty pounds.\u00a0 I used to sneak out to the local Harvey’s for a hamburger.\u00a0 I felt guilty but I needed some of my own type of cuisine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Okay, so now it was the summer of 1984.\u00a0 I was back at Farrar’s Texaco but the blonde was gone.\u00a0 That summer I thought seriously about what I was going to do for accommodation when I went back to Trent in the fall.\u00a0 I had been lonely my first two years and had made no solid connections with anyone.\u00a0 I didn’t want to live off-campus anymore but moving back into residence was also a scary thought.\u00a0 I remember I had to apply to go back into residence and there was an interview with the Master of Peter Robinson.\u00a0 I wasn’t a big fan of the guy but I passed the interview and was granted a spot in the Reade House residence.\u00a0 Reade house had an East and West side with both upper and lower floors.\u00a0 I believe I was on the East side lower.\u00a0 I was the only third year student on my side. Most were first year students and a couple of second year students including our friend Glenda.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I should point out that Glenda was my wife Jeanette’s friend at the time but I hadn’t met Jeanette yet.\u00a0 Jeanette and Glenda had been on the other side of Reade House in their first year but Glenda had been assigned a room on our side.\u00a0 I remember distinctly the first time I caught sight of Jeanette with Glenda.\u00a0 It was only a back-side view as they were walking away from Reade House toward the dining hall in another building.\u00a0 I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking at Jeanette’s behind but rather the back of her shirt.\u00a0 She was wearing a Burger King jersey that said “Belleville” on the back.\u00a0 She was the blonde who used to ride her bike behind the Texaco.\u00a0 I didn’t figure out that it was her until later on.\u00a0 Her parents had moved an hour east from Belleville when Jeanette was in her last year of high-school.\u00a0 She wanted to finish out her year at her Belleville school so she lived with Grandmother for the rest of the school year.\u00a0 Conveniently, her grandmother lived two blocks away behind the Texaco!\u00a0 After her first year of University she had moved back\u00a0 in with her parents to the east and that’s why I never saw the blonde in my second year.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll make the story short from here.\u00a0 She and I hit up a friendship because we had both been from Belleville and because of the Texaco Burger KIng connection.\u00a0\"\"<\/a> If you look at the picture above, it’s the interior of that Burger King as it looks out today on North Front Street.\u00a0 The Scotia Bank (the big red structure with the white letter “S” on it) sits approximately where the Texaco used to sit.\u00a0 My wife is still a big fan of the Burger King original chicken sandwich.\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 But I’m a big fan of my wife.\u00a0 Jeanette used to come over to visit Glenda and would always stop in to talk to me.\u00a0 Eventually Glenda had her own residence problems and moved out of Reade House.\u00a0 At that point, Jeanette just kept coming over to visit with me.\u00a0 Unfortunately she had a boyfriend at that time and I could make no in-roads with her…or so I thought.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I remember distinctly when I knew that things were swinging my way.\u00a0 We both went our separate ways at Christmas time.\u00a0 I remember being at home with brothers and playing cards on Christmas day.\u00a0 I had been bragging a bit about this girl and maybe playing up the relationship more than it was at the time.\u00a0 My brothers kept teasing me and saying if we were really a couple why hadn’t she called me yet on Christmas day.\u00a0 I kept saying “she’ll call, she’ll call.”\u00a0 Of course\u00a0 I had no idea if she would call.\u00a0 I was sure she wouldn’t but wanted my brothers to stop bugging me about it.\u00a0 Eventually a call came in for me and my brother Chris said it was Jeanette.\u00a0 I didn’t believe it.\u00a0 I thought I had been set up by the brothers.\u00a0 Not true.\u00a0 It was Jeanette.\u00a0 That was the moment I knew that maybe I had a shot with her.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 After Christmas things moved slowly and awkwardly in January.\u00a0 I knew I loved her but she made no signs that the feelings were mutual.\u00a0 I started being surly towards her and then one day she got mad at me and walked away.\u00a0 I eventually followed her and we talked it out.\u00a0 She told me she loved me and wasn’t sure why I had been surly with her.\u00a0 I confessed my love and that I was only acting that way because I wasn’t sure if she loved me.\u00a0 It all worked out.\u00a0 It was Leap Day!\u00a0 Well not exactly because it was 1985 and not a Leap Year.\u00a0 But the stars had all aligned.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 By the end of that school year Jeanette and I began talking about marriage and had tentatively set a wedding date for May 23rd, two years later in 1987.\u00a0 It seemed all kinds of foolish but we both knew we were right for each other.\u00a0 She had never felt towards previous boyfriends what she felt towards me.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>And I had never had a girlfriend because I hadn’t met the right girl.\u00a0 Two years of off campus housing and no connections with anyone and then I move back into residence only to meet the girl from Burger King.\u00a0 We eventually got married in 1987 but there we no venues available for May 23rd when we started planning.\u00a0 There was a cancellation at the Royal Canadian Legion for May 30th so we made it work.\u00a0 The picture above is of us dancing at the Legion.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 So everything worked out and my Leap Day happened.\u00a0 If I hadn’t dropped out of residence in my first year and then had two uncomfortable and lonely years off-campus for the rest of first year and second year and if Glenda hadn’t been her friend, and if Jeanette hadn’t been the girl from Burger King and if Glenda hadn’t dropped out or if Jeanette hadn’t made that Christmas day phone call then none of this would ever have happened.\u00a0 Best day ever.\u00a0 Except it wasn’t really a day.\u00a0 It was a series of days leading up to that day she told me she loved me and more days leading up to the day I said “I Do.”\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Below are some great photos of Jeanette and I leading up to that “I Do” day:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> <\/span>\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And here’s us now:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 I’m so glad my wife took this leap with me!
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, it’s February 29, Leap Day, 2020 and I thought I’d do something a little different. A Leap Day only comes along every 4 years and for those people who celebrate their Birthday today, I say Happy Birthday.\u00a0 It is not my wife’s Birthday but the story of how I met my wife is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[121,122,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1591"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6856,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1591\/revisions\/6856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}