The Meeting

At the end of this month, Todd and I will have been married for TEN YEARS.

Frankly, I find this unbelievable, but then I look at the fact that we have an 8 and a half year old.

The other day I mentioned something about Todd to a friend and he said, "Where did you find this guy?"

My response: "Girl's Camp"

Naturally.

People usually stare for a minute while they try to process the next thing to say to a response like that.

For those of you who don't know, Girl's Camp is a five day camping experience for all the young women, ages 12-18, from our church. Several congregations (called "wards") from a geographic area (called "stake") gather together to do such a camp. The summer of 1980, my mother and Todd's mother had both been asked to be leaders for the camp. Several of the leaders brought their families to the camp the weekend before all the girls arrived, so they had extra man-power to help set everything up and get it ready for the invasion of giggling teenage girls that would follow.

Camp was at a small island in the Delaware River called "Treasure Island", if you can believe such a thing. Todd and I both have memories of travelling from the NJ side of the river to the island with all our stuff in green boats driven by boy scouts.

I was four. Todd was five. Todd's older sister, Melanie, was there also. (I wonder if his younger brother was there, too... I don't remember him being there, but he was a toddler at the time. Hm.) Melanie had beautiful long blond hair. I wanted pretty long hair more than anything else, but my mean mother wouldn't let me have it because I refused to let her brush it. (Ha!! I showed you, MOM! I've had long hair for years, and I DON'T BRUSH IT. So There.) Anyway, I spent the weekend following Melanie and her pretty long hair around. Melanie's favorite game seemed to be, "Let's make Todd cry." It looked like fun to me, so I joined right in.

So my earliest memories of my husband are of him being a cry baby. ;) (I suppose by right, his earliest memories of me should be me being mean, but fortunately he has a spotty memory.)

One morning he and his Dad went down to the showers. The walls didn't go all the way down to the cement floor, which meant that Melanie and I could grab at Todd's ankles from the outside while he tried to take a shower. I remember running away through the woods with Todd's Dad yelling at us to "Cut it out!" and Todd crying. Melanie and I giggled the whole way.

The Sunday that we were up there, we had an outdoor church service where Todd, Melanie, and I sang "I Am A Child of God" for all the adults. I'm sure that we were adorable. I do remember thinking that it was very pleasant to sing with a boy who wasn't afraid to sing out AND sing in tune. (Even then, I was snobby about that sort of thing.)

And that was it. My Dad and I went home and Todd Smith didn't come back on my radar again until I was seven and he was eight.

But that will be a story for tomorrow.