45 Years
Today is our 45th wedding anniversary. I thought I’d write the story of how we met, fell in love, and married.
Randy and I went to Calvin College (now Calvin University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We met because we lived in the same dormitory duplex, Noordewier-VanderWerp (can you tell the dorms are named after CRC—Christian Reformed Church—missionaries with Dutch heritage?). I learned later that back in the day the boys from the VanderWerp dorm used to sit on the steps leading to the shared lobby and rate the girls as we walked in. I’ve always wondered what my rating was, and also wondered if Randy, who is a “legs man,” may have noticed me back then. My legs, I believe, are one of my best assets. Beauty-wise. :)
In my freshman year, Randy’s junior, the dorms had a “computer dating” event. We filled in a questionnaire and supposedly were matched by computer. On the appointed night, the girls stood in the Noordewier hallway, the boys in the VanderWerp hallway, and the event leader called a boy’s and girl’s name. The couple met in the lobby, then we all took a bus to Bylsma’s (yes, Dutch again) Pancake House for our “date.” At that time Randy had a girlfriend so we sat together but that was about it, all in fun. We were both pretty shy. I figured we got paired up because I said the sport I liked best was basketball (to watch, not play) and he probably did, too (in his case to both watch and play).
Randy and his friend Bill used to do sound for the “parties with dances” that our dorm held. Back then, the college could not officially support dances because dancing was frowned on by the CRC alumni. The students ran dances in the basements of the dorm and the posters publicizing the times and locations had to call them “parties with music” so there was nothing in writing about dances on campus—at least that’s the story we heard.
It was kind of a known “thing” at these dances that if you danced several dances with one guy at the end of the dance, he would ask you out for coffee. Randy and I had danced several times together at the end of dances but didn’t go out to coffee after because he would stay and help Bill clear up the sound equipment. The night of our first coffee date, I told my roommate, “I’m not going to dance with that Randy Moon. He never asks me out to coffee.” But I guess I changed my mind and this time Bill told Randy to go ahead and he did ask me to coffee. Thanks, Bill!
We dated for about 3-1/2 years after that, and I graduated, then worked at the Registrar’s Office for a year. I had majored in Elementary Education and had not gotten a teaching job when I graduated, most likely because I limited myself to the Grand Rapids area in order to stay near to Randy and competition was tough. The following year I decided not to allow myself to do that. Randy wasn’t ready to commit and I thought I needed to try harder to get a job in the profession I’d trained for, even if it meant losing him.
I ended up getting a job at San Jose Christian School in San Jose, California. Randy helped me pack and drove me and the U-Haul trailer across the country. I was pretty broken up (and so was he) when we said good-bye as he left to fly back to Michigan, but I told him that this would either make or break us. I told him to go out with other girls if he wanted; just don’t tell me about it.
It turned out absence made the heart grow fonder. Randy decided to move to California and at first was planning to move in with some of the other male teachers. Then as we talked more it seemed like it made more sense (ha ha) for us to just get married at the Christmas break rather than wait until the summer as we’d previously planned. So that’s what we did!
There are lots of stories that go with this one but maybe I’ll write about those another time. Crazy to think that 45 years later, here we are. It’s weird to get old, as we all discover (God willing). I thank God that he has blessed us with our love for each other.