Friday the 13th...

So...are you afraid on Friday the 13th. Claude and I are not. We were married on Friday the 13th. Nissa was born 13 months and 13 days after we were married (in case anyone was counting). We lived in apartment 13 in California. Our 1st grandmonster was born on the 13th of July. Andie's hubby, Michael was born on the 13th of August. So we really have had a lot of good things happen to us on the 13th.

Claude was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base after he got out of basic training. His commanding officer was Bishop Glen Frandsen and he made sure Claude was called into his office to learn the times and location of the meetinghouse. The first Sunday Claude showed up at Church, I was playing the organ. The organ had been added long after the meetinghouse was built and sat on the right side of the chapel as you face the front of the building. It was on the same level as the congregation. I would play prelude, opening hymn and the sacrament hymn. Then I would swing my legs around the side of the organ bench and sit on the little front side row during sacrament meeting. Claude's first Sunday he remembers seeing me do this from his seat at the rear of the chapel. He thought, "She has nice legs." (Yes, at one point I did have nice legs...but I digress.) I remember seeing him after the meeting was over and thinking he was a missionary. Dark shirt, white shirt, tie, short hair...all the signs were there. However, I saw him drive away in a 1965 Chevy Malibu and knew for sure he was not a missionary. I was president of the M-Men/Gleaner class (that would be Young Single Adults today). So the next Sunday after Church I found Claude and invited him to participate with us on Wednesday evenings. This class was held at the same time as MIA (Mutual Improvement Association) for the Young Men and Young Women. Claude came and we learned he was from Utah, in the Air Force, engaged to Connie (hmmmmm...) and a general all around good guy. He was the hotty all the girls wanted to date but there was the Connie-factor. I had a good friend named Joyce. Eventually Joyce and I got an apartment together. I had a Volkswagen beetle and Joyce had no car. Joyce did have a boyfriend that was stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana. Our practice was to attend Church in the morning and then drive to Ft. Polk so Joyce could visit her honey. While this was fun for Joyce, during her visits I was very much a 5th wheel. Tried not to be but honestly...how can you not be. After Claude arrived we invited him to drive down with us some times. It made life a lot more interesting for me I can assure you. Not so much a 5th wheel anymore. On one of the trips Claude and I were sitting on a picnic table talking and I got down and stood in front of him and planted a most wonderful kiss on his lips. There, I made my statement of how I felt even with the Connie-factor. That Christmas Bonnie, my mum-in-law got her boy an airline ticket to fly home to be sure all was well with regard to the Connie-factor. She had heard some rumors about this 'southern belle' and needed to be sure that the surething she knew of with Connie was in good shape. Claude flew off to spend his Christmas with his family and Connie. There was the understanding he was going to call on a certain day and let me know how things were going. This was to be the determining trip for his relationship and my desire was for him to come back dis-engaged. The time for the call came and I didn't hear from him. I went to bed thinking he would come back to Louisiana still engaged to Connie. Late in the evening the phone rang and it was Claude. They had been out later than he thought. He still wanted me to pick him up at the airport. So upon his return I was at the airport, ready and waiting. Now in the olden days you didn't have long hallways with slots for planes to come up to an enclosed passaged that attached to the side of the plane so you didn't feel the elements. Nooooo, we had parking spaces marked on the tarmack and you walked down the steps from the plane across the tarmack and found the covered walkway into the airport. There was only one double door to enter the very short entry then another set of double doors to enter the hallway into the airport from this covered walkway. I positioned myself (no security in those days either) in the set of double doors between inside the airport and the double doors to the outside so I would see Claude come in those outside doors. I watched every passenger coming off that plane and never saw Claude. After I waited a sufficient amount of time and no passengers were coming in anymore, I determined something had happened and he had stayed in Utah a little longer. Tears filled my eyes and my focused changed from looking through the glass to looking at the reflection in the glass. How Claude did it I'll never know but he was standing behind me watching my reaction. That should have been my clue to how all my married life would be with this guy. He came home dis-engaged. I had a tithing settlement interview with Bishop Melvin Fuller about the 2nd of January. Claude drove me to the Church. As I went in to the interview Claude told Bishop Fuller to also give me a temple recommend interview at the same time. I protested as I had not been proposed to and felt there was no reason. Mel told Claude he would do just that. So I had my tithing settlement interview and a temple recommend interview and left a full tithe payer and with the portion of a recommend that only needed a member of the stake presidency to approve. I went to work the next day in a bit of a daze. No proposal and the beginnings of a recommend. Claude was supposed to come over that night and didn't show. When I became uncomfortable with the lateness, I called around to see if anyone knew where he was. No one knew. Finally there was a knock at my apartment door and there stood Claude and he only said, "Will you marry me?" Did I hesitate...not one bit. We drove over to my parents to share the good news. Their reaction..."We knew it was going to happen, just a matter of time." That night we called Utah to tell them. I shall never forget dear Bonnie's reply, "Oh hell Claude." Bless her heart, she knew Connie and knew what a wonderful wife she would make the 1st of her six kids to get married. She did not know that southern belle. We would not meet until a few days prior to the wedding. So we set our date for Friday, February 13, 1970.

We drove to Utah right after work and drove straight through. Claude's job in the Air Force was cartographer. That means he made maps. So he took mylar and made us a flip map like you would get at Triple A now. We drove to Utah in my little Volkswagen. I drove part of the way and it was raining and dark. The mylar warped while on the heater vent in the car. I made a wrong turn and we were headed away from Utah, in the rain, in the dark on a windy road. My car started to spin. My soon-to-be hubby awoke from his slumber to a car going in circles down a slippery road, in the dark, in the rain. I took my hands off the wheel and my food off the brake and yelled something like, "I don't know what to do. Fix it." I shall never forget Claude's reply. He yelled, "Stop it Sandi! Damn it! Stop it!" I can honestly say he doesn't swear. This is one of the few times I have ever heard him swear in our married life. The good Lord was watching over us because we literally slid over this families little tiny bridge over the ditch and into their front yard. The car stopped, their dogs barked, and we tried to settle our nerves. Claude got into the drivers seat and got the car started again and we headed down the road. We realized we were going the wrong direction and got that part straightened out. Then we headed on to Utah, Claude driving the rest of the way. For the rest of our married life, Claude would drive when we would go somewhere. I believe this experience, plus adding children to be cared for in the car, made this our way to travel. It is to my advantage now because I can crochet or cross-stitch when we are traveling while Claude continues to do that driving. When we crossed the wide open stretches of highway in Wyoming we had a flat tire. We got out for Claude to change it and saw how our little car faired in its struggle to stop. It was covered in mud. When we arrived in Utah, I entered the Christensen home for the first time and immediately kicked off my shoes. I grew up going barefoot unless you had to wear shoes somewhere and it was second-nature to me. However, it was also the thing that let Bonnie know her soon-to-be new daughter-in-law was going to be okay in her book. She appreciated my kicking those shoes off and making myself to home. Claude and I were grateful that his younger siblings were facinated with this little Volkswagen beetle. They lived in a farming community and most people had pick-up trucks and a big family car. Not so many tiny cars covered in mud. They asked if they could wash it. We cheerfully accepted this offer. Part 2 tomorrow...