Sending a Book

    Tomorrow is the anniversary of the marriage of my Mom and Dad. Sixty-three years ago – May 31^st 1952. I'd like to tell two of the many stories of their courtship – one today and one tomorrow.

     My parents had been dating for a while, Dad was in his early twenties and Mom, I think was about 18.

     One of Dad's passions was football, not just as a fan, but as a player! He was the quarterback for a semi-professional team called the Lackawanna Lakers – Lackawanna being the city just south of Buffalo – known for its steel mills and orphanage, right on the shore of Lake Erie.

     Even before he was quarterback of a football team, Dad had a reputation, with his good looks, of having quite a few girlfriends. Mom was very leery of going out with him. She did not want to be one of the many. And then after their first date – an Errol Flynn movie They Died With Their Boots On at the Seneca Theater – Mom did not take their relationship seriously at all, figuring that Dad would soon move on – and she did not want her heart broken.

      Well, it was football season and Dad kept asking Mom to go to the games and watch him play. Mom had no interest in football whatsoever and even less desire to be one of his adoring fans in the crowd cheering him on.

     “Aren't all your girlfriends at the games cheering for you?” she asked him.

     “Yeah, they are. But you are the only one I care about being there.” Dad tried once again to get Mom to go to one of his games.

     “Sounds like you have enough fans at your games already.”

     “But it would only be special if you were there.”

     Mom still refused to go.

     Until the very last game of the season. She was at home when the game began, and for some reason Mom had a change of heart. She got on a bus from South Buffalo to downtown, and then did a Lackawanna transfer.

     Mom arrived at the stadium just in time to look across the field and see...........Dad being carried away on a stretcher!

     He had hurt his back and did not play football again.

     Mom was not impressed.

     A couple of weeks went by, and Dad was still recovering at his home from his back injury.

     Dad's brother, Bernie, called Mom, “Jimmy has been asking for you; why haven't you come to see him?”

     “Aren't all his girlfriends there taking care of him?”

     “Well, yeah, they visit and bring food and read to him. But you're the only one he has been looking for!”

     “Tell him I will send him a book!”

     Does everyone wonder how her/his parents ever got together? Or is it just me?

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