My First Heartbreak!

I love Donna over at Brynwood Needlework's and her Memory Lane Mondays. As you can see nothing has changed here on the North Forty still running behind on posting and visits. Last week I started this post and then everything that could go wrong did and I am just now posting it.

This months walk down Memory Lane is about falling in love the summer before my Senior Year of High School.  

The day was the first Sunday of our Summer Vacation. I had just passed my Junior Year of High School and already was looking forward to being a Senior when school started again in the fall.  Like most Sunday mornings you would find me in the front row of the Youth Choir trying my best to not to embarrass myself in front of the congregation at our Church. I am one of those people that even singing in the shower is usually banned by family members so how I got to be in this Choir is still a mystery. 

Standing there looking out at the congregation I notice a stranger in the back row. Being a small country church new comers were easy to spot and especially ones that were of the opposite sex and very good looking. lol

Naturally I was not the only choir girl to spot him and you could see when we all sat down the hands of the girls poking the leg of the girl next to them and moving their eyes in his direction. You would think the way we acted that we lived up in the mountains of Booger Holler and boys were extinct. 

After church was over we made it our business to find out who this cute guy was and turns out his name was Ronnie and he was from Bokchita, Oklahoma visiting a older sister for the summer.

He drove a Red 55 Chevy that was as hot as we all thought this stranger to be.

A few days later I am in my front yard watering my Mom's flowers hoping this hot car drives by and boy did my heart race when it not only drove by but stopped in front of my house.

Being a small town he had already met my older brother Billy and so he had excuse to stop by. From that  moment on Ronnie and I were together every day of the summer.

He was like none of the local guys I knew in my small town. I fell head over heels in love at 17. But as fast as summers go it was not long before we were saying our goodbyes. He had to go back to Oklahoma and finish his last year of High School.

We kept in touch through our letters and phone calls and sometimes he got to surprise me for a weekend but not often since it was over 300 miles to my part of Texas.

I thought constantly of the Christmas holidays when he would be back for two weeks. Finally it was Christmas and our two weeks together flew by. The night before he left to go back home he brought up again us getting married. This time though instead of waiting until we graduated he begged me to leave with him that night and elope. He had asked his parents about it and they had agreed to sign the papers for him and I to be married in his hometown.

After a lot of tears that night I sneaked into my room and packed my suitcase. I remember closing the door to my room and taking my suitcase out of the closet and packing it as full as I could get it. Crying the whole time knowing that I would no longer be living with my family but his in Oklahoma. Our plans were to live with his parents until we both graduated from his high school and then possibly move back to Houston where he could work again with his brother-in-laws company.

We managed to not wake anyone up and drove away. I was so happy thinking that there would be no more good byes for him and I and that we would be together forever.

About an hour towards Oklahoma and my new life I started thinking about my Daddy. Just the night before at supper Daddy said something out of the blue to all of us and yet that night driving with Ronnie I realized my Daddy had meant it for me. He said,"If any of you get married before you graduate High School I will never speak to you again!"

You would have to know my Daddy to know this was not like him to say something this strong. He was a quiet man and our suppers were usually my brothers joking about something they had done that day.

I turned to Ronnie and ask him to turn around and take me back home. I explained to him about what my Daddy had said to us the night before and of course Ronnie tried his best to assure me that my Daddy would not disown me. It was a long drive back home with both of us crying but I told him that we would still love each other in May and after our graduations we would be married.

The next five months were the same as before this happened. We wrote our letters, called each other as much as Ronnie could afford and he surprised me a couple of times on weekends but on the day of my graduation Ronnie phoned me.

Instead of him coming for my graduation that day he would be joining the Navy. Viet Nam was going on and instead of waiting to be drafted he joined up.  Our plans for marriage now would have to wait even longer.

Graduation Day was ruined for me. I can remember how red my eyes were from crying all day.

Six months later Ronnie wrote me that he had fallen in love with a Navy Nurse. This was the first of many heart breaks for me.

Ronnie and Cathy are still married today living in Dallas. He calls my brothers now and then to check on me. I wanted to scan his Senior picture with mine but it was not in my Senior Memory Book and so where it is now is beyond me.

You too can join Donna on the last Monday of the month for Memory Lane Monday.

Hope you are having a great week. I have missed the last two days of work in pain. Good thing I already had this typed or I would of never got it posted. Still no luck getting in to see another doctor for my back because it is hard to switch when your on Workers Comp but I am not giving up.

Love to all

Maggie