ck and the hubs--in the beginning

it was the summer of 1983 and my dad was stationed in germany. initially i was devastated. i had been at the same school for 7-9th grade (one of my longest stints of being in the same school) and i was heart broken to leave my friends.

after a brief encounter w/ a boy i'll call ralph (cos, yes, that really was his name) i was in full 10th grade mode and had become very good friends with the hubs. (though he was the one who fixed me up w/ ralph to get back at me for not recognizing his greatness). school started in august and it was this exact time in october that the hubs and i actually started "talking." he probably remembers everything word for word. my memory isn't as good as his. i remember that our first real date was to the school fall carnival, we even have a Polaroid pic of that night. me with my short, winged hair; he w/ his auburn, newly permed hair : ) quite the couple. it was roughly oct 17 (that's why we got married on 10/17).

these are the things that drew me to him then, and still do now. he was always so self assured (some---including me---might say he was cocky). he was (is) rebellious, not in the i'm going to go out and purposely do bad/harm, but in the i'm not necessarily going to follow the rules kind of way. this appealed to my goody two shoes heart. he wasn't afraid of authority (at that time my parents) and acted like he was every one's equal. and he was sweet. omg. he gave me flowers; we wrote each other poems; he scoured almost the whole country to find me the last cabbage patch doll (when they were all the rage in the states you can only imagine how impossible they were to get in germany) for christmas one year. a little auburn haired boy. (i still have it). he was sincere and honest and spoke his mind. it was like he already knew me. i could talk to him about anything. we were close friends before we actually started dating, and to be honest, i think that is probably one of the biggest reasons we're still together.

the high school years were, by no means, all sunshine and happiness. we argued a lot. i broke up with him. a lot. i would get crushes on other boys and break up with him. he would stalk me (though i didn't know some of that until much, much later).

but we did have tons of fun too. we fooled around in my room (w/ the door open cos my mom figured nothing could happen if the door was open). we fooled around at his house. we went on trips, sometimes day trips alone, sometimes with his parents. we visited neuschwanstein castle; we knocked around downtown nurnberg. he took me to paris on my senior trip.

paris was magical. we went w/ a tour group but it was like we were alone. i remember the sites, the smells, the chill in the air. of course the first thing we did when we got there was check into the hotel room. though we'd been alone, mostly, before, we'd never been ALONE like that. we visited the louve and notre dame and versailles and took a nighttime boat ride on the seine. now we talk about regretting that we didn't go to the moulin rouge, but if i remember right, i think we opted to spend the night in our hotel room instead.

even back then the hubs put up with a lot from me. and from my family. my crazy-ass sister was only a toddler then and i often took her places w/ us and wondered aloud of people thought she was our kid. (god forbid!) my brother (six yrs younger than me) would catch us making out and tell on us. he did that once and the hubs convinced my mom my brother was lying and he got a spanking.

and my folks. my mom adored him. she thought he was mature and responsible, etc. though she told me, after we'd been dating a year or two, that she hoped i didn't have sex in high school but waited until college. (the hubs has never forgotten this). my dad. oy vey. one night the hubs and i came home from the movies and when i opened the door my parents were having sex on the couch under a blanket. my dad poked his head out from underneath (he was obviously drunk, big surprise) and was wearing either his underwear or my mom's on his head. i was MORTIFIED. the hubs stuck w/ me anyway.

the summer of 1986 came; i graduated high school and we moved back to the states. the hubs' family was still in germany and came back to the states later that year.