Hello?
Hey, how's it going?
Good, good.
Nice.
Okay.
So, the question of tonight is...
So, the question of tonight is, how did you meet mom and know that she was the one?
That's the kind of two questions.
Okay.
What it was, back then we didn't have computers really.
We had punch-full computer cards.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
So, I lived in a branch in Provo, and she lived in a branch in Provo.
We weren't close to one another, the branches.
Oh, separate ones.
We were separated, quite a distance.
So, they had a Sadie Day Hawkins dance, and they paired up our apartment in her building, in her branch with ours.
And so, me and one of my roommates, Jacob, we went over there before that was to occur.
Before the dance.
A couple days before, and just knocked on the door and just introduced ourselves while I was meeting the girls and seeing who was there.
Nice.
Which we did.
I think that's probably the first time you saw your mom and her roommates.
And then we ended up going on, Irv and I ended up going on with your mom and one other girl to the Sadie Hawkins dance at BYU.
I remember your mom wore deep red lipstick, and it was a 50s dance.
And she had a lot of red lipstick, and she used it to kiss people.
These guys leave lip marks.
And so that was kind of fun.
She was fun.
And that's the first time that I met her.
I didn't really think anything about it.
And then I went back and visited the apartment.
I don't know if I took one of my roommates with me or not, because I was interested in looking at some of the other girls and asking them out.
And you know, I had fun with your mom.
Oh, yeah.
I wasn't going back there for her.
It was just to check out some of the other roommates.
I think she had five other roommates besides herself in the apartment.
And so I did, but when I went back and found it, a lot of them already had boyfriends or whatever.
And I just became friends with them anyway, because that's what I used to do,
is go around to different apartments even by myself in different parts of the city and introduce myself,
knock on doors and introduce myself to the girls in that apartment and become friends with them.
So I got to know a lot of girls that were friends.
Anyway, that was fun.
So that's the first time we went out.
And then I kind of forgot about her and just went on with life.
I met she.
And then one day we were at the – I was going to the Provo post office,
because I used to go there quite a bit.
I used to write a lot of letters out to my one sister Debbie and her family
while I was in Provo going to school.
Well, one day I happened to go in there and here comes your mom,
who had just completed her transaction at the post office.
She just walked into the post office and there she was.
So I just said hey to her and I thought, man, she's awful white.
Really quite pasty white.
And we just talked briefly and then all of a sudden, and honestly I don't know why, I asked her out.
And she said yes.
And then she left.
So we set up a date.
Why didn't I do that?
I honestly did.
Anyway, so we started dating.
And I don't know how long we did, so it wasn't –
So the date went well.
Yeah.
So we started dating.
And then I think it was July 4th or July 24th.
We were sitting on a hill with one other couple, I think it was, watching the fireworks and that.
And she thought I was being a jerk and she remembers it.
And I don't remember it that way.
And like she said, every time that she would sit up on the blanket, I'd lay down.
And then if I sat up and she laid down, then I would sit up.
Anyway, we ended up breaking up then.
And I felt – after that I felt kind of horrid for a long time.
I didn't date for a while.
And then I – so I just messed around with my roommates and that.
Well, one time we went down to – my roommates and I, with our branch at Google,
just went down to see the Manti Project, the Manti Temple.
And I'd never seen it before.
Because you remember, I'd be waiting on just getting activated and everything.
And so anyway, just by pure coincidence, and I don't believe in coincidence,
but there was hundreds of people there, hundreds of students and hundreds of people there.
Yeah, I've been down there.
Yeah, and we happened to sit behind her branch.
And I was literally in the row right behind her in these metal chairs on the grass
watching the page and saw her there.
And she saw me there and it was kind of weird.
But we didn't get together or anything.
And I just continued to miss her.
And I remember calling my mom the day that we broke up at night from the phone booth
until I just felt absolutely invisible.
I could tell my mom was extremely disappointed in me anyway.
But I don't know how much time left, a month or so.
And we didn't see one another.
I didn't call her or anything.
I decided, okay, I'm going to start dating again.
So there was a girl in my branch and I wanted to ask her out before.
But I'd been dating your mom at the time because we just dated exclusively one another.
At least I did.
I think she did too because we dated quite a bit.
And then I went out on a date with this girl and we went bowling.
And she was very nice and it was a fine date and everything.
Got her back to her apartment.
And then I told her, I said, you know, I'm sorry.
I had a great time.
I think you're really great and everything.
But I'm not going to ask you out again because I had broken up with this girl
and that's who I really like.
And so there I was.
But anyway, one of my roommates, Erich Jacob,
who I didn't know until I got to BYU, met his roommates.
We met one another because we were roommates.
He said, I'll set you up with a blind date.
And I said, okay.
And it was the day devotionals at BYU.
It was on a Sunday night, I believe.
I don't know if they also had devotionals on, I think it was Tuesdays during the day,
like between 11 and 11.30 or 11 and noon.
And so he set up this blind date.
And somebody, I don't know if it was him or somebody else,
but I contacted each one of us,
contacted your mom and set her up on a blind date.
Well, so I got there first.
I was sitting in my seat waiting and the next thing he knows,
your mom shows up and she has a blind date.
So apparently Irv had set us both up.
And that's how we got back together.
And shortly after that was when I asked your mom to marry me.
But what I did before that is after we had been dating the second phase,
after we met on the quote unquote blind date,
is I prayed about marrying her.
And what happened the next day at school, because I was in school,
and as you go between classes at BYU there's tons of great-looking girls.
And I was always looking at them, looking at their faces.
Well, that next day, literally, as I was going between the classes,
every time I'd look at a pretty girl, their face would disappear,
your mom's face would appear on their neck.
Seriously, that's exactly what happened.
And so I took that as the answer that yes, I was supposed to marry her.
That's cool.
So I did ask her to marry me.
We drove, I can't remember, we drove up Provo Canyon,
and stopped at the tram that went up.
I was going to ask her there, but then I didn't.
Then we drove out to the reservoir.
We were parked in the car and asked her then to marry me.
But she didn't say yes.
I think she said, well, I'll have to think about it.
And I don't know if it was the next day or a couple days later that I told me.
We talked, we were sitting in the car,
in front of our apartment building, and then she gave me her answer, yes.
That's how I remember it anyway.
That's cool.
Anyway, but we didn't date long on that second day before I asked her to marry me.
That's really cool.
I like that story.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's what happened the next day after I prayed about it.
In between classes, walking between classes,
seeing these girls every time, every single time,
I would just superimpose her face on there.
That's fun.
On their face.
I was like, wow, okay, there's my answer.
Nice.
Where did you guys get married?
Manti Temple.
Manti, huh.
We didn't want to get married in the Salt Lake Temple,
because it all seemed like everybody would be like,
he was always getting married in the Salt Lake Temple.
So I wanted to do something different, so we got married in the Manti Temple.
I don't think I realized that, because you guys had the Ogden Temple or something,
a picture of that in your room for the longest time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we did.
But it was the Manti Temple where we got married.
Oh, that's cool.
And we have a picture of the Manti Temple in our bedroom right now that I bought a few months ago.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was quite a thing.
And I remember when we were broken up, I wasn't working,
and I didn't have any money, hardly any money left, and I was just stretching it out.
And I went without food for a month.
What?
Literally, I lost about, I lost 50 pounds.
And I didn't realize it until I went on a branch outing,
and one of the gals there who had a regular steady boyfriend, she was engaged,
kind of started flirting with me at the outing and said,
man, you've lost weight.
How'd you do it?
And I thought, what?
But I hadn't been eating.
I literally had no food, none.
And during that period of time, for whatever reason, your mom brought over a carrot cake,
which I love.
I love carrot cake and carrot cake frosting.
And I had that to eat, but that was it.
That's all I had to eat for a month.
And I had, I lost 50 pounds.
In fact, one of my suit coats fit into it
and had a picture taken that looked like I'm a skeleton.
Oh, wow.
I'd lost so much weight, because I wasn't overweight.
At that time, I think I weighed about 195 or 190 or 185,
but I lost 50 pounds, so I got down to either 135 or 145.
Wow.
That's a big change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's mainly what I remember.
But I remember, I always thought your mom said, I'd never want to get married.
I dated lots of girls at BYU and had opportunities to marry two other girls at BYU.
And I had the opportunity, before I went to BYU, I got engaged once.
Oh, no.
Yeah, before I went to BYU, I got engaged, but then I called it off.
You see, all my friends were engaged.
They were married.
And there's just me and one other friend that were the last ones left out of all our buddies that weren't married.
I guess I'll just get engaged, get married.
What else was there to do?
But fortunately, I broke that off.
But yeah, I had not had any desire to get married,
because towards the latter end of the years of my parents being married, I didn't think they were that happy.
And so I thought, well, who wants to be married?
And then as I got activated in the Elders Church, I found out that you couldn't go to the Celestial Kingdom unless you were married.
And I thought, well, what? That's a ripoff. I can't. What?
So I kind of had to change my thinking.
There was a couple of girls that I met at BYU that were quite nice.
One of them, her name was Sue Courish, and it came down between me and one other guy,
and she wanted to marry me, and she told me that.
We had been dating, and I said, I'm just not there. I just don't want to get married right now.
So she broke it off with me and started dating this other guy she had been dating, two of us, and she got engaged a week later.
She said, well, I'm going to get married, and she did.
And then I had another girl I dated for a while, and her name was Judy Meese, and I carried the torch for her for about a year.
In fact, when I was in the Forest Service, I wrote her letters almost every week,
and once in a while I'd get a letter from her that was a highlight of that summer for me when I looked him up on the Forest Service crew in Arizona.
But she had had a guy that she knew who was not a member all her life in grade school,
and eventually he ended up taking the discussions, and then he got baptized, and then he eventually went on a mission.
And so then she ended up waiting for him and getting married to him.
And I had an opportunity that I could have asked her to marry me and get engaged, but I didn't take that opportunity,
because I just thought, well, I don't know, there seems to be a storm between him and me.
And he was on a mission, I think, at the time by then, and I just thought, no.
So anyway, that's really, that's how I met your mom and married.
But I could never figure out, when I saw her at the library, I thought, can I ask her out?
And then she left, and I thought, why can't I ask her out?
Or the post house?
That thought went through my mind.
That's funny.
And then she left, and I was like, yeah, that's funny.
That's funny.
Wow, it's been 39 years.
So I think it was meant to be 39 years today.
Yeah, we didn't do anything special.
We talked a lot about it, but we didn't.
Most everything we thought of was closed.
We sold out, like Desert Star Theater, another place that was sold out.
Then we were going to go to dinner, and then we ended up not going to dinner,
because I wanted your mom to go to Tai Chi.
Then we were going to go to a show, and then I found out she didn't want to see the show,
and Mr. Holmes, she doesn't care about outside.
I want to see it, but I don't want to take her.
She's not that interested in it.
Yeah.
You guys should go to Desert Star Theater later in the week or something, or next week.
Well, it's sold out, yeah.
We might.
Yeah.
Something.
I mean, 39 years.
That won't work.
We may, yeah, we may want to movie online on DirectTV or something.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Say Andy.
Hold on just a second, Andy.
Okay.
I'll just follow up.
Yep.
Okay.
Sorry.
Anyway, that's where we met.
Nice.
I don't remember.
Your mom said she wrote you and told you how she knew I was one, but I've never heard that story.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Let's see.
I think she said, I'm trying to think.
I just read the mic two days ago.
I think she said she went to the temple and she talked with her two bosses at work.
And she what?
She talked with her, I think, two bosses at work, like her at the farm place to get their opinions.
And I think, yeah, I think everyone was like, yeah, go for it.
And yeah, and she felt good about it in the temple.
I don't know how she went to the temple because I didn't think she had heard that.
Oh, maybe not then.
Maybe she just prayed about it.
Let's see.
See, I was almost 25 because we got married September 7, and she was 23 years old.
And I got my imbalance about two weeks before we got married.
Let's see here.
Yeah, let's see.
So see, she says, well, she says that when you and your roommate showed up at the door,
you asked them to teach you the jitterbug.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Let's see.
And yeah, she says, I knew Steve was the one after much thought and prayer.
We got along really well, and I loved the sound of his voice.
When he proposed, I did not say yes right away.
I prayed a lot and asked my bosses, two pharmacists, their opinions.
I really wanted to make the right choice, but in my heart, I knew it was the right thing.
The spirit confirmed it.
See, I knew her two bosses at the pharmacy.
They were my nice guys, both of them.
And the older one there at the pharmacy gave me good advice.
He said, now, when you get married, it's going to be a change, and no matter what happens,
no matter what, you need to work at it, and don't give in.
Don't give up, no matter what.
And I can remember after we came back from our honeymoon,
I remembered those words because they proved to be something I held on to,
because it was very difficult.
It was very, very difficult initially.
Yeah.
Anyway, yeah.
Well, cool.
Well, thank you for sharing.
Well, yeah, you should ask Mom about it and get more details from her.
That would be a good activity.
I did, but she can't remember what she said to you.
Oh, yeah.
Well, she had it in her email.
Yeah.
Oh, it's 9.30.
Yeah, I should go and help Catherine get to bed.
Okay.
Because she's busy working on peanut butter granola.
Okay.
And she also made rice krispies today with butterscotch
and rice krispie treats with butterscotch and Reese's Pieces.
Cool.
Yeah, for FAT, so super nice and delicious.
I have more temple work to be done, some of it's ceilings.
Oh.
And I have the cards from the temple.
If you want me to mail them to you or if you want to wait and see
because I know you've got to do Grandpa Carlene
and finish Grandpa's endowment now, but I have like eight or ten more cards.
Oh, wow.
And then I got another.
Oh, but they're ceilings?
Yeah, I think most of them are ceilings.
Oh, yeah, we could do that.
Yeah, because me and Catherine will be going together to do
Grandpa Christian's ceilings.
So, you know, doing more on the same session is what you do.
Yeah, I'll look to him and send what I have to you.
And then I got my dad and Sharon's, his last wife's,
ordinance printout, family ordinance sheet from the temple.
And I emailed that, scanned and emailed to my sister Debbie,
and she's going to have my dad and Carlene, she'll go to the temple
and have them sealed, or not dad and Carlene, dad and Sharon sealed.
Okay.
So she wanted to do something.
I told her I had names, so she said, well, we can do it.
Anyway, I'm not well enough to go to the temple at this point.
I wish I was, unless they let me sit in the wheelchair
and go do ceilings and I could do it.
So I may end up sending you some more cards, temple cards.
Yeah, I got that stuff and sent it off to Debbie today.
More genealogy work.
In fact, while I have you on the phone, what I need from Catherine,
so I can fill it in on my genealogy and under you and everything.
We've got to do the same for Sid and for Brad,
but I need Catherine's full name, date of birth, where she was born,
her parents' names, you know, their dates of birth, et cetera,
and her sister's full names, dates of birth, that kind of stuff.
Anything that she can give me on them,
then I can get it punched into familysearch.org
and have that on there for part of the family tree
and part of the family line.
I've got to do the same thing for Avery and her family
and then for Sid and Caressa and that kind of stuff.
Because I don't have any of that updated.
All I do is all I have on there are you four kids,
but I don't have that you're married or anything.
When I went in there to look, it shows that when I do Catherine's name,
I don't mean the work because she probably wants to do that,
but I need all that information so I can have it on there.
Got it.
So if she can, you know, send that to me,
then I have the time to put it in there now.
Okay, yeah.
I can let her know and she can send it or call you.
Okay.
Well, calling might take a while, but that's fine.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then the same thing with Eve, Eve's birth date and full name
and everything.
Oh, yeah.
Know where she was born, city, county, all that kind of stuff.
Well, we need it.
I know.
I remember.
She's my daughter.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
I've only got one to remember so far.
When you guys were married, you know,
the date you're married in the American Fork Temple
and all that kind of stuff.
Okay, yeah.
Okay.
All righty.
Well, cool.
Well, we'll have a...
Yeah, I will let her know and we'll get that stuff to you.
We'll get that stuff to you.
Okay, super.
Have a wonderful...
See, and I have to do that with my sisters.
Okay, you too.
Yeah.
All right.
And yeah, happy anniversary again.
What?
Happy anniversary once again.
Oh, thanks again.
Thanks.
Okay.
Yeah, I'll call you, I don't know, maybe tomorrow at lunch
or probably Wednesday for more chatting.
All right, sounds good.
Awesome.
What time do you usually take lunch?
Any time, sometime between noon and 1.
So for me, not between?
10 and 11.
10, 11, okay, thanks.
So, yeah.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
Love you lots.
Love you too.
We'll see you.
Okay.
Okay, bye.
Bye.