NONFICTION  -
     With the Theme of Choices

Which flower to pick? 

                                    Photo by Weebly.com                                    

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Choices
by  Barbara Applegate

​She met him while out dancing at the Buckhorn Lodge, the only bar in town that had a nice restaurant and live music. He asked her to dance several times that first evening and he seemed very nice. It was fun to dance with someone who was so much taller than she was.
 
He had just gotten out of the Service and moved to this small town in the mountains. He had a summer job with the Forest Service and was staying with his parents. She also was there temporarily, having signed a contract for her first teaching job in a small town several hours away. She was spending the summer with her mother and younger brother and sister, while working in the office of her uncle’s lumber mill.
 
The two of them met several times at the Buckhorn Lodge and she thought he was a nice person and interesting. He invited her on a date, came to the house and met her mother, brother and sister, and then they were off to the movies. They began to see each other regularly and after a few weeks he asked her to go with him to dance again at the Buckhorn Lodge. They had a good time; a few drinks and dancing. Afterwards he did not drive her directly home, but up the windy mountain road leading out of town along the river. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and said, “Let’s get out.”  It was quite dark by now and no light but the moon. He got out, walked around to her side and opened her door. She did not know what to expect and was leery about getting out of the car but she did. There was a large, flat boulder right there on the edge of the road and they sat down on it. Although it was dark, she could see the moonlight shining on his face. He looked serious. He took her hand and pulled her toward him and kissed her. She kissed him back. He pulled her over to lean more closely against him and said, “I want to marry you. Now.”  She jerked away.
 
“What? We don’t even know each other! We just met! How could you possibly think we should get married now? We don’t even know each other!
 
“But I know,” he replied. “I know you are the right one for me and I want to marry you.”

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​Her mind was racing. Sure, he was a nice guy. She was enjoying dancing with him and getting to know him. But a month had not even passed since that first encounter at the Buckhorn Lodge! Her mind reeling, she finally said, “I don’t think we know each other well enough to get married right now. How about if we continue to see each other this fall? You know I’ve already signed a contract to teach in Willits and you’ll be back in graduate school in San Francisco. We can see each other every weekend.”
 
“Oh, no. No, that definitely does not work for me. I’m not going to be driving back and forth, three hours each way, every weekend. And you shouldn’t either. I want to marry you now!”
 
I must be in shock, she thought. This is an absolutely crazy idea! Why is he so determined? Why couldn’t he wait till we know each other better? Her mind was reeling. Ideas were flitting around and then disappearing. After a long silence through which he sat quite patiently, she said, “Well, this is just way too soon. All I can say is that I am willing to get to know you better, spend more time together and we can talk about possible marriage in the future.”
 
He pulled her to him and kissed her. A short while later they returned to the car and he took her home. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, as she got out of the car at her mother’s house.
 
They spent 2 or 3 evenings together every week and went on occasional picnics with friends on the weekends. Several such weeks passed by and one day he said, “I want to take you to meet my parents.”
 
“Okay,” she said and the next day he picked her up and they drove up Indian Creek to where his parents were remodeling their home. He parked and they got out and walked to the front door which he opened. Stepping inside, he yelled, “Ma, we’re here!” 

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​His mother got up from where she had been sitting and exclaimed enthusiastically how happy she was to finally meet the young woman she had heard so much about. She invited the young woman to sit down and offered coffee. Handing her the coffee, his mother said, “I understand you are going to be a member of our family!” Shock and dismay flooded through the young woman. Her coffee cup tipped precariously. What? What was his mother talking about? What had he told his mother? She stuttered something like, “Well, that hasn’t been decided yet, I’m not sure yet, we haven’t finished discussing it yet, and . . .” The rest of the visit was a haze.
 
A few days after this shocking discovery, she told her mother that the young man wanted to marry her. “He seems like a very nice person,” her mother replied. “What do you think about marrying him?”
 
“I don’t know,” she said.
 
A day or two later her mother told her she was going to town (several hours away) for school supplies for the younger brother and sister. She added that if the girl wanted, it would be a good time to look for a wedding dress.
 
A few weeks later, several days before she was to show up for her teaching job, the girl wondered how she had gotten here as she walked down the aisle, her hand resting on her brother’s arm.

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​Barbara Applegate received a BA at UC Berkeley, with a major in Spanish, and an MS in Education at CSU, East Bay. As an administrator of Early Childhood Education, she developed a program to teach parents in non-English speaking families the value of helping their children retain the home language while learning English. She is the mother of 3 daughters, a traveler and a contemplative. She loves taking writing classes - not only because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.

Other works in this issue:
Poetry:
​The Collage - A Poem
Hide and Seek

Inside OLLI:
Interview with Elaine Porter - Adventure Interest Group

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