I just want to be Carole King. sigh….And sing with James Taylor, of course.
I knew I HAD to use it for a little slide show I was doing. Please don’t make me take it down, pretty please???
So, we met, August 1978 in Minot, ND. And we flirted, but there were other things/people/stuff (??, as if).
Then I moved back home and we wrote letters, mostly in the summer, but there were lots of sweet letters over the course of 2+ years. I love that you kept all of mine and wish I had kept yours, too.
Then I moved back to Minot and we flirted some more, but you were unavailable.
This is Dave preaching in chapel at Northwest Bible College just a few weeks before we started dating. This is Tara and I just a couple of weeks later.
Then, when I thought you were still unavailable (right after your graduation), you asked me over to watch a Rock Hudson movie. And you sort of made your availability known.
It was NOT Rock’s best movie (“Man’s Favorite Sport”). But it turned out to be a fun night, anyway. I think there was some Barry Manilow involved…
And we hung out late nights after you got off the radio (KHRT) and you’d call me at the office frequently. Or drop by – pretty much a lot. And it was a whirlwind.
And 3 weeks later, you said you wanted to marry me. And surprisingly your family thought that was fine. Mine was on the fence, but after they met you, they liked you better than me, anyway.
And 59 days after the first date that I didn’t know was a date, we went to Wimbledon, ND and Dr. Gough married us. I was wearing my cousin Shellie’s dress and none of my family was there, but you were my new family: me and you and Tara.
My co-worker Elaina, had just thrown a whole bag of rice down my dress. Wimbledon, ND
And then we were us and we had a truckload of kids. A girl, another girl and then another. Baby dedications were regular celebrations! Finally got that boy before we gave him a baby sister. We lived all the way from Minot to Kokomo and then to Sioux City and then to Norfolk, NE, where we moved in June the year Stormie (who wrote us a sweet anniversary blog) had just turned one. Then we landed in Denver – home!
Look! Through relentless determination and commitment to the pursuit, we got a boy (baby number 4)!
I did my best to be the “sober” pastor’s wife I’d been charged to be when Dave was ordained. Not my best life’s assignment!.
And besides lots of kids, lots of life and love and wow-did we laugh and dream and grow??!!
Um, yeah. I don’t have any idea what this silly picture was about. My mom took it. It was the 80s.
And there were hard times, too, some disappointments and regret and times we were afraid we’d end up like everyone else.
Me with baby number 3; Dave with baby number 3 (July 1983)
But we made our choices and did them on purpose, together. It was always all about together. And then we didn’t end up like everybody else. It was waaaaaaaaay better.
And we made it. We did! We beat the odds together. Just like the Shania Twain song.
And I love you still.
est. 1981
NOTE TO YOUNG MARRIEDS: Try to get in pictures together. You are all doing well with the arm shot in this digital age, but be sure when you look back over 30 years of pictures that you are not just seeing mom with all the kids or dad with all the kids over and over and over. And yes, I am speaking from experience!
With a sign the kids made us when they “decorated” our yard late one night. Sweet.
NOTE: The “graininess” was from the photos being in their album covers. Shoulda took them out, I guess.
You are my hiding place
You are my hiding place
You shall preserve me from trouble
And You shall compass me about
with songs of deliverence
What time I am afraid
I will trust in You.
Some days, I just pull out the old Hosanna! Ingrity Music and worship my head off. Couldn’t find a Youtube for this particular Hiding Place song, though the other You are My Hiding Place song that I also love like crazy is everywhere there.
But in looking, I also found this one. I sang this so much back in the day that people in our church liked to play it and say, “Hey, Tredessa (or whichever kid), – who is this singing?” “Mommy,” they’d say. I sang it that much. I’ll tell you something now, we’d have to drop it about 3 or 4 keys!
Wow I loved this song back then! Those late 1980s…
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” – Jesus, in Mark 2.27
“…celebrate with joy…this festival to the LORD…”
Nehemiah 12.43 “Also that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women also and the children rejoiced. The joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.”
I probably started fantasizing about being a bride and being married right about the time I started having memories that would stay with me.
I love love and I love songs and stories and the energy of it. And as far back as I can remember, into that twinkly-gold-flecked-slightly-8mm-film memory haze of the early 1960s, I would imagine being married. At 3, naturally, the groom was a figment of my imagination, “Joe Penny.” During my daily nap-time at 3 or 4 years old, I would imagine being married to to this phantom Joe Penny and how my name would be “Jeanie Penny.” I imagined being a housewife, except all done on my little play kitchen, with my little play dishes, me in an apron, as would have have been indicated by the black and white movies of the time. Joe Penny would go to work daily while I puttered about in the kitchen and he would return home where fresh iced tea would await him.. Wouldn’t married life be lovely?
{Remember Joe Penny, the actor who emerged in popularity in the 80s? Well, there he is, I thought. My 4-year-old-fantasy husband. Yes, he would have done just fine.}
And as I got a little older, I still looked at boys for the suitable husbands with acceptable last names they might be. And I never thought about it in terms of us being grown up, no. Somehow I was certain if the adults around us would just support us a little, we would undoubtedly be able to have a very successful Leave-it-to-Beaver-home-in-the-suburbs existence. I was quite certain, even though I really had no interest in the domestic arts otherwise, if I could just marry the object of my current affections, I would be transformed into a virtuous and quite accomplished wife, dusting, cleaning, ironing and preparing dinner. Naturally, mature as I was, I also anticipated hand-holding and a kiss here and there.
Am I supposed to reveal this? Is this a big secret? Well, I am telling.
So – there is a boy and you deem him cuter and sweeter and funnier than all the rest and he is nice to you and so you start writing his name on pieces of paper and eventually you write your name + his name and then the inevitable: your first name + his last name – you know, practicing, just in case you need to write a check with that name someday. Yes. This actually happened all the way back, from the time I could write. For from the youngest days, I knew Moslander was just too difficult a name to bear, so, since I can remember, I was auditioning possible names along with the cutest boys. Yes, I was. And that is common among romantic girls. Shocking, I know. But true. Feign to deny it, women!
So, as of this weekend, I will have been Jeanie Rhoades for 30 years. It has been much easier a name to carry and has been with me longer than Moslander was. For some reason this morning, I just started remembering all the possible names I might have ended up with if only my parents and some little boys’ parents would have understood that we were unusually mature for our ages and should have been allowed to set up house. Beginning in 1965, after the make-believe Joe Penny was no longer on my mind:
I might have been Jeanie Bricker. Kenny was in my Kindergarten class and had brown, curly hair and a few freckles and wore that brown terry-cloth tunic-style shirt with such panache.
In first grade, I would most assuredly have been Jeanie Sutherland, married to a tall, quiet, strong blond from a holiness family down the block. Danny often walked me home from school, protective, watching for cars as we crossed the street.
I could have ended up, during those grade school years, as Jeanie Sable or Jeanie Sandry. There were 2 entire years devoted to being Jeanie Gray, for Kevin was o-so-dashing as 3rd and 4th graders go, in his gray slacks and Hush Puppies.
First kiss: Jimmy Green. I would have been Jeanie Green, which is funny because of course now, my friends and fam all refer to my favorite shade of spring-green as Jeanie-green.
My junior high friends will know those years were all about being Jeanie Roby for the most adorable meaty, tall and charming president-of-the-student-body type and his size 13 shoes, Bill. How apropo that the song, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero…come back and make me your wife,” was playing on the top 40 stations of the time. Oh, he was a charmer and just so darn likable.
I could have ended up, had my silly girl fantasies and name-writing practice ever come to fruition, being, at various times and places, Jeanie Gonzales, Jeanie Smith, Jeanie Jenkins, Jeanie Dixon, Jeanie Martino (well, I mean – that actually almost did happen, a broken engagement), Jeanie Henderson, Jeanie Worley, Jeanie Carr, Jeanie Wells, Jeanie Mericsko and perhaps a few more. Perhaps.
That has worked out just fine. Still “playing house” with my husband, a Latino with a white man’s name. It turned out that Dave + Jeanie did not equal me being a domestic machine, duster in hand and dinner on the table at 6. And I only use an apron when Dave makes me (to save my clothes, people). But sometimes, our life is sorta like a black and white movie with a happy soundtrack, sunshine streaming through the windows, or a really hot scene from a 70s movie I wasn’t even supposed to see back then (shhh…don’t tell my parents), or a romantic comedy with a high-stress-level working girl from the 80s. Sometimes not. But mostly, crazy-good. And sweet.
You are my love, you are my life
Oh and I get high just holding you tight
We always dreamed we’d make a lot of money, o but
I don’t mind being poor
‘Cause when you make love to me, honey
I couldn’t ask for anymore
All our friends seem to be in a hurry
But darlin’ we’ll just keep on taking our time
We’re living such a sweet life, o what a neat life
Sharing my love with you
We’re living such a sweet life, o what a neat life
Making our dreams come true
We’re making our dreams come true…*
I am not quite as “mature” and good at it as I thought I’d be. But I am learning. And it is better than I imagined.
*Paul Davis, “Sweet Life.”
My mom wanted a Debbie. My dad wanted a Jeanie. They compromised and named me Debra Jean, but I was called Jeanie from the moment I was born. My mom’s dad, my Grandpa Allison, called me Debbie Jean to make my mom happy.
My dad said he knew who I’d be when he saw the Northern Tissue ads on billboards in 1959. “There is our Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” he’d tell my mom. She bought the set of posters by Frances Hook, an American artist whose friendly depictions of Jesus with children you would recognize.
The Northern Baby with light brown hair and blue eyes. And me. With the light brown hair.
So, a few times during my life, people have burst into song when they’ve lerned my name. The song is an oldie, written in the 1800s and has some quaint words. My parents chose the actual spelling of my name, which could have been spelled a bunch of different ways, from this old song. And though I have heard a gazillion renditions, I only just learned of this one. And I really like it. I finally feel like some one sang it like they meant it.
Having had red hair 18 out of the last 25 years and even brown-black hair for a year, I have been feeling a little frumpy with my return to a light brown (because I can’t stand the upkeep of red nor the constant attention to roots with dark hair). It is the least work. But it seems boring. Just plain old me again. Then Sam Cooke sings
Aaah. I am in love! Thank-you, Sam Cooke! Suddenly ok with my hair color! O happy day.
Phillips, Craig & Dean supports Denver area church in spreading the gospel through their upcoming movie “The Prophet’s Son”.
This film is rich in music, politics, and drama. It dares to reopen the wounds of Columbine, expose the heartache of homeless, runaway youth, and demonstrate the bold faith and love of Christian believers. In the ever-present longing of the main characters for each other, The Prophet’s Son models purity in the kind of love that lays down its life for others. The movie is at once romantic and prophetic, demonstrating the power of God to conquer in every imaginable situation, while preparing His people for impending judgment.
A little humid and muggy for my tatste, but fun!
We were sailors once and we were young. Joe is just to my left.
My brother, Joe, is blogging now. CLICK HERE to read the real writer in the family!
Gavin turned 8 over a month ago and I just got his video finished, for a whole slew of really valid and extremely interesting reasons. Yeah, right. It just took the Gav and I awhile to sync our schedules.
LOVE this boy. Wrote about his birthday HERE. And now, for the movie we made together using, yes, songs from the 60s and 70s because that is what I do (he wanted rock -n- roll, for sure). Gavin loves life and embraces it with abandoned fervor. That is what I hoped to capture in a few photos and a little video:
