Trust Your Crazy Ideas (Part 13)

Continued from Part 12…

Finally, on March 15, I decided to allow Mike to come to Olney.  By this point, I knew that Jason knew that I was in another relationship and the only real hurdle would be introducing him to Grandpa – and Mandy, and Mike, and Mary Lou… and the other half of the town I ran into that evening.  I picked Mike up at the high school in Newton and brought him home.  Grandpa was surprisingly receptive and they seemed to hit it off from the very beginning (whew!).  I don’t remember what they talked about but I do remember Grandpa telling me the next day, “He seems like a nice boy.”  For some reason Grandpa wanted to call Mike the name “John” for a long time, but once we worked through that, it was all good.

That evening, we had dinner at Joe’s Pizza (an Olney favorite) with Mike and Mary Lou and went with them to see the play that Mandy was performing in at OCC – Cinderella.  Of course, Jason’s sister was there and I caught many people glancing my way to see whose hand I was holding…

The following weekend, I had to attend driver school to have my ticket removed from my record.  As a certified driver ed teacher, I was less than thrilled to sit through a morning of the exact stuff that I could teach.  I signed up for the class in Champaign, so at least I was able to see Mike that weekend.  On Sunday, we met Mike’s mom, dad, brother, and soon-to-be sister-in-law at Starved Rock State Park for brunch.  I had never been to Starved Rock and I thought it was just beautiful.  There was still a touch of snow and the entire park was picturesque.  I thought it was a beautiful area.  We had a good time visiting and convinced Mike’s mom to take a few photos of us together – our first photos together – outside on the balcony that morning.  Little did I realize I’d walk down the aisle there just two years later…

Mike and I continued to see each other whenever we could.  I’d drive up to his house and spend the evening, driving to Newton early the next morning to teach.  Mike started coming to Olney as well, and often we’d meet in the middle in Mattoon, Effingham, Charleston, or Newton for dinner, shopping, movies, etc.  I took Mike to the musical at Newton High School and we picnicked at Sam Parr State Park.  We met up with other friends for lunch and dinner and generally spent as much time together as we could during the spring of 2002.

In early May, I finished student teaching, bought a new car, graduated from college and celebrated with a surprise party, dealt with the death of two of my students (car accident), traveled to St. Louis with Mike, Mandy, and Gary, spent the weekend at Jim and Sherri’s for the first time, spent time at the lake, applied for my teaching certificate, and went back to work at Spieth Photography.  You’d think that would be enough to do in two weeks time, but it was also during that time that Mike and I made a big decision.  A decision that most people who knew me at the time thought was a little crazy…

To be continued…