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This delightful true love story, written in the first person by the spouse of the title character, will have readers reliving their own pasts.

Excerpt

Chapter 1:  I’m Going Where?

It was May of 1975. Maybe you remember what it was like. The US was evacuating its embassy in Saigon. Streaking had come and gone. The stock market was just beginning to recover from an extended downturn. Gerald Ford was our president. Most people had yet to hear of Bruce Jenner. Jack Nicholson and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had just cleaned up at the Oscars. Nixon administration personnel were being sentenced to prison for their roles in Watergate. We were soon to reach two hundred years as a nation. The Cold War was going strong, but the “ping-pong diplomacy” of 1972 in China had initiated a thaw of sorts, even with the Soviet bloc. Eighteen was the legal age for drinking in many states. Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John, and the Eagles were among my personal favorites. The Pittsburgh Steelers had won their first Super Bowl in January. And I was driving a school bus twice a day to pay for tuition expenses at Grand View College before transferring to the University of Northern Iowa.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said to no one in particular as I pulled the bus on to the shoulder, in response to the flashing red lights that were clearly intended for me. I was usually the first driver to depart every afternoon from the Norwoodville Elementary School parking lot because my route covered the greatest distance. As the rookie driver I didn’t select my route; it was assigned to me. I stood up to tell my kindergarten passengers to remain in their seats while I went back to the car with the flashing lights to talk with “Mr. Policeman.”

Little Rollie Kouski asked, “Are you mad? My daddy always gets mad when he talks to the policeman.”

I had to watch as every other driver slowed his bus to make certain he could believe what he was seeing. That’s right, one of their very own was being cited for speeding – while driving a school bus full of kindergartners – less than three blocks from the school! Between their wild hand gestures and guffaws I was confident they would be waiting en masse at the bus barn once I finished the route. They were.

“Son, I’ve been sitting here in this same spot, every day, for two weeks. I’ve been watching all of you drivers barrel down Broadway. I know it is downhill, and I know the limit changes from twenty-five to forty-five just up the street. But right here it is only twenty-five. Every one of you drivers has been over the limit. I just decided that today I was going to send a message to all of you. You just happened to be the first one out of the chute, so I am citing you for speeding. Sorry, you were the one to be the example. Now maybe all of you will slow down.”

And that is why I married a girl from Bydgoszcz, Poland.

I suppose that segue merits some explanation. My father always liked music. He was not a trained musician but he had a pleasant bass voice. He liked to sing and was in the church choir. But even when the choir wasn’t singing, Dad always sang the hymns with a little more gusto than the rest of the congregation. And he would harmonize. That always fascinated me, too. You know how sometimes people sing really loud – like they are trying to impress you? Well, that wasn’t Dad. If he had been like that I probably wouldn’t have liked music. He just enjoyed singing, and still does. I wasn’t particularly gifted in music, like my little sister was, but I was probably a little better than my older brother.

Dad found an outlet for his singing interests. He joined the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America Inc., or SPEBSQSA, for short. I was probably seven or eight years old when Mom and Dad took us to our first “Barbershop Show” at KRNT Theatre. I liked it. The music was OK, I guess, but I really liked those funny guys, “The Four Nubbins.” (The featured quartet).

And that is why I married a girl from Bydgoszcz, Poland.

My youth was a pretty typical middle-America, 1960s, blue collar experience. We were probably closer to poor than to rich, but we were far from either one. Dad was a truck driver who had grown up with six siblings. Mom was a nurse and had been raised on a farm along with three sisters and a brother. We weren’t exactly the Cleavers because Dad didn’t wear a suit to work and Mom always worked outside the home to make ends meet. But Mom and Dad did teach some of the same values as Ward and June. My brother took care of me, kind of like Wally took care of The Beav. My father liked to reference my two best friends as Gilbert and Whitey. He even pegged another buddy as Eddie Haskell.

Copyright 2010 Tim Pratt. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.