She calls them mountains; he calls them hills. She is “five-foot-and-a-bit” and he is a ‘sight’ taller necessitating she stand on an overturned bucket. She’s been all over the country; he doesn’t know where Tennessee is, let alone how to spell it.
Hence the puzzle she sent which his granddaughter put together while he watched closely.
Sam Cooke released “Wonderful World” in 1960 when the two of them were both 10 years old. She thinks it amusing, his version: ‘Don’t know much about geography, Don’t know much about Tennessee.’
Theirs is a nearly 3,000 mile parking lot romance. Several times a police officer friend patrolling that parking lot has stopped by, recognizing his truck, asking how his Tennesse (sorry, Tennessee) friend is doing.
Turns out the police officer knew all about Tennessee. And she (who was on FaceTime at the time) thought that that was cool, that she was actually talking to someone who knew something about where she lived, and so the two of them struck up a conversation while he (the parking lot romance guy who handed the police officer the phone) listened in to the speakerphone conversation, given he was no longer apparently needed, and given he knew nothing about what they were talking about.
They got to laughing, the police officer and her, and talking about whatever, the police officer lapsing into a southern drawl like hers.
Finally, the police officer got a call from dispatch, turned on his lights and sirens, and almost drove off with his phone.
She can rattle off all 30 of the Classic Timeless Country Hits – sing ‘em too, her state bein’ the Nashville home of such stuff, while he has never heard of George Strait.
She uses phrases like “a fussin’ road” to refer to drivers with whom she takes exception.
The two of them spend so much FaceTime together she’ll forget the Dove Bars she bought (yesterday) are still in her car, and his coffee (first cup) will need to be reheated four times before he’ll get a chance to finish it. Hers too.
“Your turn to hit the red button,” she’ll say when it’s time to say goodbye, but he won’t and she won’t and so another hour or so and they’re still conversin’.
Both have lost their spouses of many years to cancer. Both believe love can come twice. Both plan to live like newlyweds the rest of the way, and so live happily ever after.
Notwithstanding geography challenges, what a wonderful world it will be.
