Cindi and Ted, Chapter Five

It's been a while since I've written a chapter in "our" story, so a brief review may be in order.

Ted and I knew who each other was (is that proper grammar? or should it be "were?" whatever...) in high school.

However, we didn't get together until a friend we have in common, Jim, arranged a date for us. We went to a concert with Jim and his date and had a great time. Then we started seeing each other pretty often, getting to know one another.

This is Jim with his young son Justin, taken in the mid '80s.

Check out that great smile of Jim's...and his son is just a DOLL! Jim just happens to be Ron's younger brother. Readers of this blog may remember that Ron and his wife Nora live in Texas, but were here in Ohio in July for his and Ted's class reunion.

Ron and Ted have been great friends since elementary school, and even though Ron moved to Texas, have stayed in touch over the years. Jim moved to Texas first, followed by Ron soon thereafter. They felt that there were more opportunities for them there.

So back to our story....

Ted had told me all about his family, but I hadn't met any of them. About a month into our "dating" we had gone out to a band show in a nearby community. I was still interested in seeing marching bands in action and since I was getting a little older, really enjoyed watching them as opposed to marching in them!

After the band show, he calmly suggested we stop by his brother's house.

OH MAN. I quickly tried to pull up everything I could remember about his brother, from my memory bank. Let's see...he was 5 years older than Ted, married to an italian woman, had a 1 year old daughter, and worked for our local newspaper in the pressroom.

I was getting more and more nervous as we were getting nearer to their house. We pulled up, and there was an additional car in the driveway. "That's my mom's car," Ted said. WHAT?!?! I'm going to meet his MOTHER too??? This might be too much for me. I took a deep breath, and decided that it would be fine...really....well, maybe...then that old adage, "you can only make ONE first impression" ran through my mind.

We went up to the door and walked in. Ted introduced me to his brother, sister-in-law, niece, and.....HIS SISTER! Whew! His sister was using his mom's car and she had stopped by. What a relief!

I sat down and Holly, his niece, was playing near my feet. What a sweetheart! She was absolutely adorable, with a headful of dark blonde curls. She smiled a lot and was so playful. She was as pleasant as could be, and she even let me hold her for a while.

We all talked for a while and I tried my best to listen more than I talked because I didn't want to come across as someone who just yakked all the time (okay, those of you who know me in real life can quit laughing now!). I really enjoyed getting to know these people that were so important to Ted. After an hour or so, Ted said that we needed to get going. When we got out to the car, he immediately wanted to know what I thought of his family. I thought they were great! They were so easy to talk to and it was obvious that they all had good values and morals.

But the REAL question was....what did they think of ME???

I couldn't wait for the feedback on that, but would have to be patient. Ted wouldn't find anything out until after he and his sister were both home and they had a chance to talk. Then he wouldn't be able to tell me anything until the next night.

So the next night when he picked me up, I was a little nervous. We got in the car, and the first thing he said was, "They like you...they really like you...so relax."

Wow, I felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

HOWEVER, a bigger challenge lay ahead a week later. On Labor Day he came and picked me up and took me back to his house for a cookout with the family. I would be meeting THE MOTHER, THE FATHER, AND THE GRANDMOTHER.

It took me about an hour to decide what to wear. Afterall, it had to be perfect. I was the FIRST girl Ted had ever brought home to meet his folks. Oh gee, talk about pressure. What I didn't know until later was that until that day he'd kept me a secret from his folks and had told his sister and brother not to say anything about me.

As it turned out, I really enjoyed his parents, and they seemed to like me too. After we ate, his dad got out the slide projector, screen, and slides. I didn't know that his dad was really into taking slides. His parents had also gone on our band trip to Houston, and had taken a bunch of slides while there. We were looking to see if I showed up in any of them. We also saw slides of his parents' trip to Hawaii.

By the time we left so he could take me home, I felt as though I had passed yet another major hurdle...it seemed as though the parents liked me, WHEW!!!

Then time started to fly by....