Our kids bought into Storyworth for us for Christmas. We get to write, they get to read. So we have begun down that path and thought of few of those may fit nicely into this blog. Here’s one…
May 31, 1975 – The time had come to arrive at camp to work for the summer. A healthy mixture of excitement and nerves accompanied me on that drive north. I passed the Wilderness Canoe Base sign at the end of the driveway as I drove the last stretch. I parked and hiked down to the shores of Seagull Lake and met the girl who was to become my wife. I’ll have to admit it was not love at first sight – she approached with her big horn-rimmed glasses and a mouth full of bubble gum excitedly introducing herself. She was one of the 60+ people I was to get to know that summer. I did gain an attraction to her as I began to get to know her, but I felt she was out of my league. It also turned out she was already connected to her long-time boyfriend (also at camp).
We made it through that summer and became friends. Friends enough to gather that fall with a group of Wilderness staff at a cabin near Alexandria. My interest in her grew that weekend. I watched her as she sat in a rocking chair with her long, auburn hair swinging behind the chair as she comfortably chatted away. I liked that girl.
April 14, 1976 – We had our first official date seeing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” at a downtown Minneapolis Theater. We ended that date with our first kiss while sitting in my 1966 VW Bug in front of her apartment at 9th and Chicago.
Summer of 1976 – Darla returned to Wilderness that summer. I came part-time splitting my summer with the Environmental Learning Center in Isabella. Our budding romance grew. I met her folks at their campsite at Way of the Wilderness campground. I think they took a liking to me.
Early that fall we sat on a park bench in Augsburg College’s Murphy Square and discussed the idea of marriage. While not the classic proposal you read about in books, we decided getting married would be a good thing and began to plan.
February 19, 1977 – That marriage discussion in Murphy Square finally bore fruit. The day of our wedding was here. We were both only 23 years old and the first of our friends to marry. We didn’t have a lot of weddings to use as models for ours and liked to do things a bit counter to what we did know as established tradition. Our wedding party was small consisting of brother Tom and good friend Marsha. Tom and I each had a corduroy suit – brown, but not matching. Marsha wore a nice dress she had. Darla did buy a simple wedding dress – no veil, flowing train, or any such thing. We each wrote our own vows. Marsha composed and sang a song – still sitting on our piano. Leslie and Becky, Wilderness friends shared song and flute. Our wedding rings were both simple gold bands. Brother Chuck joined Darla’s childhood pastor officiating the wedding. The reception was simple – held in the church social hall – no live music or dance.
But it was a beautiful wedding, it was ours, the best I had ever, or will ever attend. We were just off two summers at Wilderness Canoe Base (#31 in the archive of weddings with origins at camp). Combined with friends and family there were 300+ in attendance. By the time we finished shaking hands and made it to the reception, much of the food and cake was already gone.
February is not the most popular time for a wedding. It was cold and snowy. Our ‘honeymoon’ took us to the local Super 8 for our first night followed by three nights at my folk’s cabin on Lake Ada. The cabin was a true ‘cabin’ – wood burning stove, outhouse, no running water. But it seemed a natural thing to do post-Wilderness. We did follow up with a camping trip in our 1972 VW bug (upgrade) to the West Coast that spring – after recovering from an accident in Willmar. A good trip, but our tent was cold, and the ground was hard. One night in Yellowstone an older couple took pity on us and invited us to their heated camper for dinner. It turned out Darla was two months pregnant – we were learning about morning sickness needing to stop the car now and again for her to vomit in the ditch. Early in the trip I fell in the Bighorn Mountains and scraped my shin. I limped along. Yet that trip was unforgettable, we were in love, we were married, and we did it our way.
December 3, 1977 – An important footnote – 9 ½ months after the wedding we welcomed our firstborn into the world and became a family of three. Natural Family Planning offers no guarantee on birth control, but we love our daughter and can’t imagine life without her.
February 19, 2024 – 47 years later we are still deeply in love and have put together a somewhat unconventional life of doing things the Bill and Darla way. I love you my dear.
The Purple Crayon 