How I met your father....

This is the story of how we met. Mostly from my point of view at the moment, but I'm also gonna get Jamie's input, and copy the poems we wrote and post them as well. Remember I'm not a "writer" but I feel compelled to get it all out there, so I can make clear sense of everything. The nurse just commented that she thinks I'm feeling better, because I've been up here blogging away, She seems to think that since have energy for writing this, that's a really good, thing. I think I agree. SO I'm gonna let it flow, and see what happened, maybe some of my English writing teachers can give me some pointers along the way. Cause you all know me and I tend to ramble on....

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I got a job as a clerk at the Keoing Art Emporium in the Mall of Memphis. I would work there in the evenings, to earn extra cash, and get cheaper art supplies. I had worked there a couple of months, and one day as I was sitting at the counter, Iooked up to see this tall lanky curly-headed (yes, he had a full head of curly hair!) boy walk into the store with his friends. He glanced at me and as goofy as it sounds, I felt like I had been struck by lightning. That was the moment I first saw him, but I don't think he worked at the book store yet.

Ironically, I worked with an Memphis College of Art friend, Hal Harmon. (amazing coincidence I know) and I had been loaned a book of poetry of Richard Braughtigan which I was reading. Hal probably thought I was a goofy hippy girl, but he never said so. I think he and I had a connection that somehow, both of us new went a little deeper. Anyway, I was intrigued by this lightning bolt that had walked into the store that day. he was unlike anything I had ever seen, unlike anyone I had ever thought about. You see, maybe it was the way I was raised, maybe what I had sen in highs chool, what "type" of person, I should go out with. Jamie was just not gonna fit i that mold. Luckily for me, I had all but given up and pretty much been burned by the "types" of people I had always been told we're right for me.

SO I kept working at the art emporium, and several weeks went by, and I saw yur daddy again. He walked into the art store, and this time he was wearing a name tag! I had a name..."Jamie", this worked out well for me because, I didn't have to wear a name tag, but he did at the bookstore. I was so excited to tell Hal about this and Hal immediately old me that I should set out to meet , this "Jamie" and wrangle him with the Richard Braughtigan poems. NOw in my life I'm pretty outgoing, I'll say or do what I need to do, I'm guessing that's the wisdom that comes with age! But back in 1990, that was not the case. I was really pretty shy about putting myself out there. Thankfully, for me, Hal was my "go get them' brain for both of us. He decided that I needed to copy my favorite poems from the the little book onto these little blank stationery cards we sold at the store. (Can you stay..thievery...you just ha to know Hal!) Hal ket on me like white on rice, and would not let up. S to make him hush, I wrote out my favorite poem, and on the envelop I wrote the name "Jamie". (I'll post it later, when I can get my hands on the letters, because we've saved them all. Hal had been scoping out the closing routines of the book store crowd, and he knew they we're much quicker closers than the art store folks, Hal knew they would be gone, long before us. SO as we walked out passed the bookstore, Hal said, her's you chance doll fling the letter. A wave of panic came over me, and in a split second, Hal grabbed the letterou of my hand and sent it flying under the security gate! Well that was all she wrote!

Jamie was of for a couple of days, but when he came back in he said that he was cleaning up around some of they're blank stationary cards, and picked up one off the flor that had been sealed and had his name on it? Jamie told me that he thought it was a joke one of his friends was playing on him. He said he asked everyone, but no one would confess. So he then thought that maybe, just maybe, it was for real. He told me that he had hoped t was me, but had no way to be sure.

Well since I/Hal had thrown caution to the wind, I figured I had nothing to loose, so on night I wrote another card with a poem and Jamie's name this time I signed it "D" and sent it flying under the security gate.

The next night Hal went to take out the trash and came running back to the store saying, Dan you've got o take out the trash right now, jamie's taking out the trash as we speak! Of course I just watched Hal take out the trash, but Hal had plan for that, he just pulled all kinds of stuff out of the cheapo bins, and put t in the trash bag and said, here, go to the dumpster. Well, I rememberer being a little nervous and scared, not knowing what to say if I were to have run into him. So as I mulled over in my mind this conversation, I made my way to the dumpster, only to find, no Jamie...anywhere. It turned out that Jamie had watched me go to my car the night before, after work. He actually stayed after work in his car to figure out what I drove! ( It was a Ford truck with a a camper that I called DooDoo Brown, cause it was DooDoo Brown) Jamie said he had just put the poem on my car window when he saw me standing bewildered at he dumpster. I'm so glad I didn't see him, cause might have been a little freaked out by the whole think at that point.

Well I got back to the store and told Hal Jamie was no where to be found, he was completely, shocked, but not obviously phased by this disappearance. Maybe he knew Jamie's plan.

So we leave the store, I get in my car and see what I think is a ticket on my window. I get aggravated, open the door, and I pick off the "ticket" and much to my surprise it was a poem by E.E. Cummings, that Jamie had written to me. I can not tell you how excited I was. I flew out of the parking lot, caught uo with Hal and flagged him into a gas station got into Hal's car and he had to read the poem, I was too excited to read it my self!

I can tell you that I didn't sleep at all that night. Th next day, I worked the earlier afternoon shift, so Hal sent me to by a Calvin and Hobbs book and make some eye-contact with Jamie. He even gave me the money to buy the book. And then, after that Hal got Martha Hample, the store manager in on the story, by delivering the final letter, with the my full name and phone number on the card. She was a great sport about it! And in a twist to the story, she and I are now face book friends 20 years later!!

I knew that Jamie would call as soon as he got of work, so I was a little nervous, so I called my friend Troy, and stayed on the phone for 2 hours, avoiding the inevitable conversation to come. Troy was a good sport, but he was like' Dan you really meant to talk yo him, you need to get off the phone and talk to him already! SO I agreed, and I kid you not, the second I got off the phone. The ringer set to blaring. It was Jamie. He said, I've been trying to call you for hours, so I came clean and said, that I knew e'd call, so I had been staying on he phone.

We talked for hours that night the phone. And set up an afternoon, date, to meet at the MCA's Sleeze and Slime cafe. We met there, walked over to The Brooks Museum of art, looked at a photo exhibit, the we drove down to the porter building downtown, where Jamie was working as a photographer. We went up on the 13th floor of the building, sat out on the ledge, and threw paper airplanes of the ledge, It was a crazy, scary, magical moment, because I'm am seriously afraid of heights. And although I'm not sure I would ever do that again, I'm so happy I did it then,. Yes the stars were aligned!


Mre details to come....