The hubsand

No, that's not a typo. I often tell Randy, "You're a good hubsand." This dates back to when we were first married. After supper we'd use the Today devotional to read some Bible verses and a little meditation. I would tell Randy what verses, he'd read them, and then I'd read the meditation. Once he was reading something that had the word husband and he kept mispronouncing it as "hubsand." He tried to correct himself several times and kept messing up. It made us both laugh so hard we never finished the devotional that night.

Randy and I met while we were both at Calvin. He started in 1972 and I started in 1974 so he was a junior when I was a freshman. Our family has heard the story of how our first date was coffee together after a "party with music" at the dorm. Randy and his friend Bill used to provide the music and sound system for dances that the kids put on in dorm basements. They were not sponsored officially by the college and when they were publicized with posters on the campus they were referred to as "parties with music" since dancing on campus was something many alumni -- and donors -- would not approve of. It was the custom that if you danced several times with a guy at the end of the dance, he'd ask you out to coffee. However, Randy and I had danced quite a bit together at the end of a few dances and that didn't happen. He had to help Bill take down the sound system afterward. Sometime in the second semester of my sophomore year, as I left to go to the dance in our dorm basement, I told my roommate, "I'm not going to dance with that Randy Moon. He never asks me out to coffee." But that night he did. And that was the beginning of our courtship.

I often tease Randy about him not remember our dating days. For some reason he has very little memory of them, at least compared to my many memories. This must be common because I've seen sitcoms and movies where wives get angry with husbands for the same thing. One memory we often bring up is a kiss in the rain. I always thought a kiss in the rain would be romantic. When it started raining one night as we were getting in the car I asked Randy to kiss me in the rain. He said he would but the way it went is I opened my door, ran to his side of the car, he opened his door, stood up and kissed me, and then I ran back to my side. As I sat down he said, "Got water down my collar." Not quite the romantic moment I'd envisioned!

Another memory in a parking lot was once when he was dropping me off at my apartment, I started singing, well, belting out, the Linda Ronstadt song of that time, "That'll be the day, when you say good-bye, that'll be the day when you make me cry..." I was clapping and moving to the beat, really getting into it and Randy was quite embarrassed. I just got a kick out of increasing his embarrassment.

Another parking lot memory (don't know what's up with the parking lot theme, I'd never noticed it before): When we first started dating, we double-dated with our friends Sid & Candy. On this date, the guys waited in the car while Candy came up to my dorm room to get me. As we approached the car on a cold, icy evening, I slipped in a big way. Just completely lost my footing and plopped to the ground. I was close to the car so Randy and Sid probably just saw me disappear from sight. Candy, sweet thing that she is, said, "Get up, get up! Maybe they didn't see you," knowing how embarrassed I'd feel. So I scrambled up and opened the car door. Sid was cracking up pointing at me and Randy was laughing his head off. So much for not noticing.

Our little dating relationship had some ups and downs and even break-ups, but it turned out all good. We had a lot of fun.