more from our first trip to Duluth

As you remember, I shared about our first trip to Duluth but I forgot to mention something else. His ride on the bridge.

This is the aerial lift bridge in Duluth. We had been walking along the bridge when the alarms started going off warning people they needed to get off the bridge because it was going to rise to let some larger boats go through. I quickly was ready to leave but not your father! He was feeling young and invincible and wanted to ride the bridge up. And that's exactly what he did. I remember thinking that it was a not very smart thing to do which it was. When he came back down and got off the bridge he told me the operator yelled at him and told him he could be arrested but because he was from out of town, he wouldn't be. 

I did a little research and it turns out that they use to let people ride up and down on the bridge like 10 years before. I'm not sure which year this was but I think it was before the woman was killed. For more information about the bridge, go to here. 

gift giver

Your Dad loved to give gifts to the people he loved. He really spent time trying to find something that I think he both wanted to give and also receive. This made it a tall order especially when one is dealing with limited funds as he often was. I'm not sure that I remember many gifts he gave me, like I mentioned before he loved to give stuffed animals, I didn't much like to receive them.  When I turned 18, he did get me a really fun gift that wasn't practical or what I thought I wanted but to this day, I still love.  He picked up this Rocket gumball machine at an antique store for probably $150 and I noticed one on ebay that sold for over $600 so that's pretty good increase in value but I still don't want to let go of it, it doesn't take up that much space. It's a good memory. 

Your Dad took a lot of time to really think about what would make the recipient happy, it was often unique things that were unexpected. Not to white wash this all too but there were plenty of times where he forgot, didn't make the effort or just plain didn't get a gift for me to acknowledge something(my birthday, valentine's day, mothers day), money was tight but I didn't need much. I would have been happy with a gift of service or thoughtfully homemade but he really like to give gifts. I do remember one of the last gifts he gave me. It was one of those clam shells (see below) that you open to reveal the pearl and depending on the color of the pearl, it could be nice or really nice. I think that sticks out in my mind because I had somehow discovered that I was not the only woman he gave that to that year.

love letters

So I went to the house yesterday to get the grass mowed. While I was there I picked up a few things to bring to the house and remembered to look for the letters that I saved from when your Dad was in the army. It was getting late so I didn't want to read them at the house, I came home and sat on the back patio before it got too dark and I was forced to go inside.

There weren't as many of them as I remembered. As I look back with "grown up" eyes, I realize that he wasn't gone that long, maybe 6-8 weeks before he was home for Christmas. He came home for a couple of weeks and then returned for maybe 8 weeks longer before he was back at home.

We hadn't been dating that long when he left. I also found some letters that he would write me when he was still here but we were apart. I think we had only be dating a couple of months before his recruiter picked him up.

Most of the letters didn't contain much other than he missed me and loved me and he said that A LOT. There was one note (because he was before he went into the military) where he shares his background with me up until age 15 which was how old I was when I was reading it. It was a bit white washed where he didn't talk about much negative stuff. He does talk about not really knowing his brother until they were much older. He talked about talking to his Dad.

It was just very bitter sweet as I read through the letters, his writing was much neater than it was later in his life. He did have hope, hope that after getting out of the army he was going to go to college, that we would be together....that he would be happy.

Anniversary date

I also remember a day when we were celebrating an Anniversary. We had a date at the local independent fast food restaurant that we'd go to often.  This place had pizza, burgers and broasted chicken. It was called Burger and Chicken Express.  My best friend from high school worked there and my younger sister too.  We brought candles and champagne glasses and bubbly grape juice to make it a little special.  I'm sure he had his usual which was a double bacon cheeseburger with onion rings. Normally, I think he'd also drink root beer but this night was special so we had the grape juice.