"Questions 67 and 68" - Chicago, 1969

Six year ago today, John asked me to marry him. It was early in the morning, and we were in the Sheraton Suites on the West Loop in Houston. He said it was appropriate to propose in Houston, as that’s where I was living when we met back in 1995. It was a ringless, impromptu proposal, which made it even more special to me.

That was such a wonderful day…although unfortunately John was feeling under-the-weather. We were in the US on holiday/vacation (British English/American English). John’s mum Anne had come over with us. She’s a terrific travelling companion.

We didn’t immediately tell Anne that we were engaged. The three of us met my friend Krista for lunch in Sugarland. We toured around Houston during the afternoon, as it was Anne’s first trip to the city. And in the evening, we went to Brenner’s Steakhouse for dinner. And that’s when we told Anne that we were getting married. Anybody who has ever had dinner there knows that it’s a special place, so that seemed appropriate for our big announcement.

The next stop on our US trip was New Mexico. In one of my favorite spots in the entire world, the mountain village of Cloudcroft, we had planned quite a reunion dinner. My brother and his girlfriend Marcella were driving over from the Las Cruces area to be there. And my long-time friends Carole and Bill were in the area and were coming to Cloudcroft to see us. Aunt Blanche was coming too, as she only lived across the valley in Ruidoso.

We were all around a long dinner table at Rebecca’s restaurant at the Lodge in Cloudcroft when I casually said that John had asked me to marry him, a few days ago, while we were in Houston. Noise immediately erupted from the table, the likes of which Rebecca’s probably hadn’t heard very often. There was screaming, laughing, and crying – and Bill practically leapt across the table to hug John and me!

What I remember the most, though, was what happened when the noise died down. As it went quiet, Aunt Blanche calmly asked, “WELL? What did you say?”

It was the line of the trip…well, after “Will you marry me?”, of course!

Happy Engagement Anniversary, John! I love you SO much!!!

Janet