So the crazy idea that Critch and I (and some help from Bob Paschke...not the sheriff Bob Paschke...his younger, irresponsible, drunkard of a son Bob Paschke) hatched shortly after New Years 1999 actually worked! I got a phone call from Holly, and even though it was possibly the most awkward phone call I've ever gotten, she agreed to at least let me take her to the movies. Now there was a little problem...ok, a big problem. Holly was technically still married, although the divorce was definitely going to happen. At this point, I should probably fill you in on at least the basics of her marriage. I'm not going to go into details, but lets just say it was very short and very tumultuous. I'll leave details out for the sake of Holly, but let's just say that the fact that she left the relationship when she did has always been something that I have admired about her. Many women will remain in awful situations with the belief that "it will get better", but not Holly. As soon as things went from bad to crazy, it was f*&% this s*&%, I'm out of here!"
Well, let's just say that Holly's dad wasn't crazy about the idea of another guy coming into her life right away, and I really can't blame him. I still distinctly remember many of our first phone calls and Holly telling me that she was hiding in her entry way of her front porch so that her dad couldn't hear her. I even remember one time hearing him open the door and say something to the effect of, "Is that a guy?". When Holly said it was, his response was not something that a guy wants to hear from any girls dad. I'll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of, "Yeah, that's all you need. More bullshit in your life from a guy." Sweet. The amazing thing in retrospect is that EVERYTHING about the situation was screaming "RUN FELAX RUN!!". Still married...has a kid...angry dad...and Holly's warning to me herself that night at Greka's. She actually said to me, "you don't want anything to do with me...I'm crazy." I laughed and thought she was messing around. Nope, she was dead ass serious.
But I didn't run. Everything just seemed to add up in my mind. That night on New Years Eve, the phone calls, the pickle card...everything just added up. As a matter of fact, I found out through our conversations on the phone that we even had a run-in with one another just a few days before New Year's Eve. Why didn't I KNOW that we had a run-in, you ask? Well, the story goes something like this.
A few nights before New Years Eve, I was out with a few of my friends. I know Glen Curtis and Matt Schalk were two of them, but the other ones escape me for some reason. So we are out...well...having fun like we seemed to be always doing at that point in our lives, and it's snowing like hell. We are on our way to Metz Lounge (yep, here comes another "Holla!" from my Rogers City peeps) when the car we are in somehow finds it's way into a ditch. Imagine that. To be bluntly honest, I actually think we ended up in the ditch because the driver (I won't mention who it was) actually swerved for a deer. Now, when I say "swerved for a deer", you're probably thinking that I mean that he swerved to MISS a deer. Well, not on this night. As we approached the deer and started slowing down, we all started prodding our driver to speed up and hit it. I remember someone yelling something to the effect of, "Get it...that's good meat!" I really didn't think he'd do it, but the next think I know, the pedal is to the medal and we were barrelling toward the deer head on. Something tells me we hit it, but not hard enough to do a damn thing to it. Problem was, we ended up in the ditch. So at this point, we don't know what to do, so we start to walk toward the nearest house which was just up the road a bit. But right as we start walking, to our astonishment, we see headlights coming down the road. Salvation! Someone to tow us out or at least give us a ride! We start waving our hands frantically, but the damn gray Buick just drives right past us...and I distinctly remember flipping the bird as it drove out of sight. Who was driving that car, you ask? Yup, I was flipping off my future wife.
I don't know how it came up in our conversations, but it was indeed Holly that drove past us that night. When I asked why the hell she didn't stop and help us in the driving snow storm, her reply was something like, "Why the hell would I stop for five idiots who just put their car in the ditch. I assumed you were drunk and stupid, and I was on my way home from work so the last thing I wanted to do was stop and help." Touche. Well, we eventually got to the house up the road and woke up an old man wearing the saggiest whitey tighties I've ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on, but he had a four wheel drive. We thought he was doing us a good deed, but ended up making us pay him for his time. Grumpy old shit.
So Holly and I finally decide that our first date would be a movie. And she also decided that she was going to have to lie to her dad about it. "Just a night out with the girls, Dad!" So I come home from college one weekend and of course, I can't come and pick her up, so we have to meet somewhere and drive to the movies in Alpena together. At this point, I need to explain to people from "down state" why we had to do this. You see, up in Rogers City, if you want to see a movie you've got to drive to Alpena, which is about a half hour away. Rogers City had a theatre at the time, but they seemed to be WAY behind the time as far as what movies they were showing. As a matter of fact, I think the folks up in Rogers City are talking about this new "E.T." movie that is coming out. (Just kidding Rogers City folks...sort of). We decide to meet at the Posen Junction, which you only know about if you are from "up north". When we meet, being the gentleman that I am, I thought it would only be prudent to be the one to drive since I was the guy and all. Well, in hindsight, it was a pretty stupid idea since I had no muffler on my car. You see, Holly isn't one for holding her feelings in so much. Even though we were on our first date and really didn't know each other all that well, I remember he basically telling me how much of a dipshit I was for driving around in a car without a muffler. It was loud and it smelled horribly, so once again I could see her point. (I'd like to think the horrible smell had something to do with the muffler, but it probably had more to do with the fact that I hadn't cleaned the interior of my car in six months)
So we tool over to Alpena and see "Patch Adams"...some supposedly true story about a whack job doctor, played by the king of the whack jobs, Robin Williams. When the movie is over, I think now is the time to turn on the romance. Candle lit dinner? No. Walk by the beach? It was winter...hell no. Burger King drive-thru? Count me in! So we order our romantic drive thru meal and head back toward the Posen Junction. At this point I have no idea how the date is going. Holly doesn't say a whole lot, but I'm convinced that on the way home I made a HUGE mistake. It was a mistake that to this day makes me laugh. When I finished eating as much of my delicious double cheeseburger as I can (I say I ate about 3/4 of it, Holly says it was more like 1/2), I roll my window down and chuck it out the window so that some unfortunate woodland creature can end up with heartburn right along with me on this night. But almost immediately, I hear little miss quiet yell out, "What did you do that for?!? I could have taken that home and gave it to the chickens!" Gave it to the chickens? Really? At first I thought she was joking, but I soon realized she wasn't. She was the daughter of a farmer, and NOTHING ever went to waste. I was completely taken aback, but I just chalked it up to a lesson learned.
I dropped her off into her much quieter and less smelly car and we were on our way...a first date for the ages had come to an end, and at this point I had no idea where I stood. All I knew was that she didn't say a whole lot, and when she did, it was usually to give me some shit. So yeah, she was exactly like I remember from high school. But for some reason I still didn't run. There was something that drew me to her. I know I admired her strength and her sense of humor the most, and she seemed to have her priorities exactly where they should be. She made it CLEAR to me that priority number one was Cheyenne and I assumed that I was pretty far down on the list...as I should be.
When I returned to college a couple days later, I remember telling my roommates that I thought I would marry Holly. "After one date? You're an idiot." Probably so, but something was telling me otherwise. One thing I know for sure...it was NOT an easy path, but it was a path worth taking.
Until next time....
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