Spring & Summer1960

When I arrived home from Ann's house I was totally surprised that my Dad didn't get on my case about being late. A few days later however, he casually said to me that the car wasn't driving just right and did I know anything about it. I said no and he just let it go. Oh, if I had only realized how gracious my Dad was being! Senior week at our high school was the following week from the gas station incident. All seniors got a lot of privileges during that time. One afternoon I was sitting in my shorthand class when Jim Brackett came into the classroom. All the girls perked up when they saw him! ( during those days, he looked a lot like Ricky Nelson a rock & roll singer popular at that time! As you can see from a previous post, I liked Ricky Nelson!) He said to my shorthand teacher that he needed a secretary to take some dictation. She complied and told him to pick whoever he wanted. He looked us over and his eyes landed on me! He must have recognized me from the gas station and said that he would take me. WOW! Can you imagine how excited this girl was!? Well just go back for a moment in time and hear her heart thumping? That day was the beginning of our young love. We went over to one of the biology labs and he very formally said he wanted me to take a letter to a former girlfriend! I didn't care who it was to. All I knew was in that moment I was in a state of shock and just thrilled to be where I was, doing what he was asking me to do. This teenage girl fell in love on the day she met; this personable, cute guy. Sounds crazy, I know but it's true. We started dating almost immediately. Actually, the dates consisted of driving me home from school, going to the movies, going down to the Point which was a beach where a lot of kids hung out. There was another young man I had started going with who had just given me a friendship ring a few days before. I felt really terrible about having accepted his ring. Being the honorable young man that he was, Jim took the ring back for me and explained the situation to this other guy. I didn't have enough nerve to face him. I did feel bad, but my feelings for this guy named Jim were very strong. The first big date we had was to the senior class picnic. It was here that I was acknowledged as Jim's girl and for the next 6-8 weeks we dated steadily and frequently. In July of that year I had to go with my parents to Ocean City Md for our family vacation. I didn't want to leave my new boyfriend for a whole week. ( I was afraid he might meet another girl) He was invited to join my family for the next weekend but I was still insecure. On Friday afternoon I was on the front porch of the rental house anxiously waiting to see if he would really show up. And, yes he did! He has since told me that he spent the whole week getting his car all spiffed up just to come see me and that he wouldn't have missed it for the world. Oh! what needless worry; God is still teaching me to think on what is TRUE. It was true that Jim loved me and much more than I ever realized. I still had my part-time job at the bakeshop and he had one at Towers Dept. store in the shoe dept. One evening at a drive in theater in Lake Shore MD Jim told me of his desire to live the rest of his life with me. So when asked if I would marry him I answered yes I would. As with everything else in my life, I never gave it a second thought. I was living for the moment and didn't think about what lie ahead. The pledge was given and received and the plans were formulated to accomplish a secret wedding ceremony. We knew neither one of our parents would agree to us marrying so young and especially me not having finished high school yet. This is why we decided to keep all of this a secret till after I finished school. Then we planned to tell our parents.