Thirty-nine years ago this weekend, I met someone who changed my life. I was sitting in the youth choir at church when a guy I didn't know came in and sat down in one of the pews. After a little while, he sent a FFA Greenhand (new ag member up to talk to me as part of an initiation of new members). The Greenhand was named Eddie and he had to do what the upperclass man told him to do. He was told that he had to come up to me (a complete stranger) and ask me to marry him. I didn't know what the Greenhand that he wore around his neck represented and I thought he was nuts! The new guy in the pew was having a lot of fun at both our expenses.

After the fact, we all found out that the new guy, Jim, wasn't even in FFA and couldn't give the Greenhand things to do, but poor Eddie, believe him and was so embarrassed after the fact.

I had been to the statefair on Saturday and put a quarter (yes, it was only a quarter back then!) into an arcade machine named Madam Zelda. The fortune teller moved her wax hand back and forth over cards and nodded her head, then spit out a card with my fortune printed on it. On the card, Madam Zelda told me that I would meet someone within the next week who would change my life.

To this day, I never pass one of those cheesy arcade machines without feeding money to the fortune lady.

Within a week I was dating Jim and soon "going" with him. We dated throughout high school and were off and on during my senior year. He had graduated the year before. Finally, we broke up and were not even speaking. I went off to college the next year and came home one weekend and went to visit his mother, and wham, Madam Zelda reentered the story. I returned home in late September to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. I caught the bouquet! Two weeks later I came back home for another friend's wedding and Jim caught the garter.

The rest as they say is history. We have been married 35 years.