I see references to “Summer of Love” all over the internet these days. No clue why. One reference suggested the Summer of Love happened the year of Woodstock, 1969. That made sense, but a quick internet search proved that information to be untrue.
Too bad, because 1969 was the summer I met Randy. Hearing that 1969 was the Summer of Love inspired me to write this post.
The real Summer of Love (says the World Wide Web) was 1967, when (according to Wikipedia) “as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco’s neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury.” For a 50-year retrospective, see this article written in 2017.
Randy and I were just a tad too young to be considered that generational crowd, but truth or not that 1969 was the accurate year in question, it could certainly be called our Summer of (Puppy) Love. Thankfully, our summer of love continues to be our happily ever after.
My dad’s extended family owned a couple of cottages on a lake in Northern Wisconsin. It was a summer tradition for dad to hook up the ski boat, mom to pack the boat full of enough food and snacks to feed a small army, and pile all 6 kids into the station wagon and make the 5-6 hour trip north for a week. We all looked forward to it. A lot.
On August 4, 1969 (I was 15 years old) we pulled up to the cottage and spilled out of the car. There was another family we didn’t recognize already in one of the cottages. Lots of little kids and 2 teen-aged boys, one redhead and one dark haired. They reminded me of Archie and Jughead of comic book fame. Archie, apparently, was my destiny. Only his name turned out to be Randy. Why Randy was even there with that family that week is a story for Randy’s blog, www.ourhighplaces.com. It’s not there yet, but now that I’ve mentioned it, I suppose I better write it for him.
Randy, in typical teen-age boy fashion (he was 17 that summer), tried to drown me that first day. He says now that he was just trying to get me to notice him when he pushed me off the raft every time I tried to climb on. Oh, I noticed all right. Regardless, we fell into puppy love that week, and I cried for hours the day he left. But my very wise mother (see here) said to me, “If it was meant to be, you’ll see him again.”
It was obviously meant to be.
Turns out Randy lived just 2 blocks from my dad’s sister in a nearby town, and our high schools were in the same sports conference. We ended up seeing each other a fair amount during our high school years. That’s not to say we actually dated then. We had a great friendship and snuck a few kisses under the bleacher seats at Lambeau Field where our high school football teams played each other a couple of times a year. (Long before Lambeau became the amazing venue it is today). But I had a steady boyfriend all through high school and Randy dated several girls in his high school years. Randy did ask me to his senior prom, but dad refused to let me go to prom in another city so we never really did typical boyfriend/girlfriend couple things.
It wasn’t until Randy joined the Air Force and flew off into the wild blue yonder, and after I fell head over heals in love with an older (married) man the first year of college (a story I’ll never tell publicly), had my heart broken, and finally needed to reconnect with long-time friends to get back on emotional solid ground, that we started to think about each other in serious romantic terms.
Because we were such good friends first, and by the time we ended up marrying (I was 21, he was 23) we both had a little of life under our belts, we were able to weather a lot of the storms marriage, and life, throws at you. We were blessed to be able to grow into deeper and more mature love as the years rolled by. And this year we’ll celebrate our 47th wedding anniversary. Gosh, I used to think that people getting close to being married 50 years are old. Not any more. We’re both far too young to be THAT old.
I’ll always remember 1969 as the summer Neil Armstrong took one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind, as he set the first human foot on the moon. And as the summer seeds of love were planted in me and Randy. Seeds that have grown to mighty testimonies of mature and lasting love, the selfless kind that you have no idea about when you make those vows to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
It ain’t easy, being married. But it’s worth it. So, so worth it looking back at it from our perspective of today.
Thank you, Lord, for letting us experience, first hand, happily ever after.
Leave a comment telling about your Summer of Love. A PG-rated version, please. Or how you met your spouse, or the love of your life. Aren’t the happily ever after stories worth sharing?
P.S. I miss using emojis when I’m writing this blog. Especially when I’m cracking a joke that I intend you to smile or laugh at. What would you think if I started sprinkling emojis throughout my posts? Cheesy? Or now socially acceptable in all electronic media writings?
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