A day of remembrance

We've been hearing about April 19 and April 20 a lot this week, especially after the Virginia Tech massacre. Talk of Columbine, the Waco disaster, the Oklahoma Bombing and even a man called Adolf Hitler come up and remind us of the dark side of humanity. Now, with this year's tragedy, we'll have a week's worth of horrible images to replay every year.

In spite of all that, I view April 20 as a happy day. A third of a century ago, Bill Love, a kind, good man from Louisiana, gave me an engagement ring. It was prom time. I was advising both the drill team and the yearbook. So, when Bill Love gave SHS teacher Marianne Love an engagement ring it was good news at a school.

The school helped us celebrate as did my friends Dick and Helen Whittaker. After all, Helen had offered her mansion down on the river the previous August to serve as the setting for Bill's and my first official date. Of course, accompanying us on that date were about a dozen drill team and Monticola members and about a dozen good looking young college men from the South.

That first date involved meeting at the City Beach, piling into cars and going to Whittaker's house. We played pool in the pool room, we stood around a campfire down on the beach. While Bill and I took a short trip in the rowboat out on to the still waters of the Pend Oreille River, Helen serenaded us from shore. Later, Bill wowed me and the entire gathering with his harmonica music.

The following spring, talk of a wedding heated up during April. We went to Art Ruyle Jewelers and picked out a ring----a half carat diamond set in antique gold. The antique has pretty much worn away but not the meaning of the ring. April 20, 1974 was a Cinderella day for this country bumpkin who'd found her beau. And, the Whittakers of both generations saw to it that we felt special that day.

Helen and Dick took us to dinner. Then, we went back to the Whittaker house where a prom party was in full swing. Holly had served as prom chair, so it was a special night for her. When we attended the prom later, our engagement was announced, and we enjoyed a special dance in our honor. We also had our photos taken, but sadly, those burned in our 1984 house fire. I do remember though that I was a size 12 back then. Haven't gotten that skinny since.

I did turn back into a bumpkin later, but I never got into glass slippers anyway. Bumpkindom has always been fine with me, and Bill doesn't seem to care that his wife is a hick from the sticks. It's hard to believe that a third of a century has passed since that magical night of our lives. The world has changed too. Back in the '70s we weren't spending so much time dwelling on days of horror in schools and other institutional settings.

Why is it that so much of the magic in life gets mired and hidden in the dark, murky shadows? Maybe if our media spent a little more time simply reporting news and less time analyzing every single reason someone goes ballistic, the insane among us wouldn't get so many bizarre ideas or have so much textbook instruction on how to create more horror.

I don't know the answers to that question, but I do know that this anniversary date of a very special time in my life reminds me of how lucky I've been in spite of what's happening in that world outside of Sandpoint.

We still have some of the magic here, both at the Lovestead and in our community. For that, I celebrate this day.