The Day After

It is the day after Thanksgiving. It has always been a special day for me. My husband Mark proposed to me on this day, 24 years ago. We had gone to my Grandma & Grandpa Etzler's house for Thanksgiving dinner the day before and were still quite full.

Since I lived out of town, Mom thought it would be a great day to go dress shopping. I knew that Mark and I would eventually get married, it was just a question of when. So Mom and I took off for a day of dreaming. I found the dress of my dreams the first one I tried on. Of course, you can't buy the first one you see, so we proceeded to visit every bridal shop in Fort Wayne. After a 6 hour search, we went back to the original store and bought the dress - a real bargain at $250!

That evening at dinner, Mark mentioned that he was hearing a funny noise in his car and wanted Dad to go with him to the gas station to see if he could figure it out. We all howled, my Dad at that time was particularly deaf and couldn't hear. "Oh no, you wouldn't want me to come, I can't hear a thing." my Dad chortled. Later that night we went out with my sisters to a couple of bars downtown. It was a cold night, but Mark insisted we go to Frieman's square, a small park with a fountain in downtown Ft. Wayne. He had me stand on a pedestal and then gave me a beautiful serpentine necklace. He wanted to fasten it around my neck. I thanked him, but said we needed to go, because I had to use the restroom. "Just a minute, he said, it is up on your collar." I reached up impatiently, to see what it had caught on and felt a ring! Of course I said yes, when he got down on bended knee to ask me to marry him.

Much to my disappointment, everyone was asleep when we got home. I learned the next day that Mom had champagne cooling in the fridge to celebrate. When I called my Grandma Etzler, to tell her the news, she said "Well, if he had given it to you yesterday, he would have gotten a Christmas Check also. Guess he will have to wait until next year."