“Every love story is beautiful but ours is my favorite” – Unknown
June 11th is an important date for me. It’s the day that my friend Barbara “fixed up” my husband Skip and I on our first date way back in 1978. More often than not I think our “love story” is more humorous than romantic. I was not the first choice of a girl for Barbara to be Skip’s date, as it turns out Cheryl backed out and in a funny twist of fate she was the delivery room nurse for our youngest daughter Kristen’s birth. Back in the day friends actually set up people on dates wanting their friends to be as blissfully happy as they were. On our first meeting I made my mom’s recipe for cheesecake which impressed Skip. He was late (strike one). He smelled like he bathed in Brute aftershave (a possible strike two). And he almost knocked out the back window of the car as he made his suave “move” to put his arm around me in the back of my friends Mustang while wearing his GIANT college ring! Nonetheless, he asked me for my number and wrote me a postcard from Texas when he went to visit his family there. (He apparently sent multiple postcards to women on that trip, yes this was years before text messaging.) Some might ask what did I see in Skip, but the real question what I often thought about what was it that he saw in me.
In addition to his intelligence and dimples and full head of hair (and many other outstanding qualities) Skip is, was, and probably always will be the funniest person I have ever met.
Skip (on the left) cracking up his little brother Steve
I think the following quote from Nicole Scherzinger describes Skip well.
“I love a man with a great sense of humor and who is intelligent a man who has a great smile. He has to make me laugh. I like a man who is very ambitious and driven and who has a good heart and makes me feel safe. I like a man who is very strong and independent and confident that is very sexy – but at the same time he’s very kind to people.”
Biff and Skip. Best friends.
You can tell a lot about a person by how he treats his mother (and mother in law).
Skip with his mom
Skip and his mom in Chicago
Skip and his mom on our wedding day
Skip and my mom
The true measure of a man’s success is not monetary, it is how he loves and treats his friends and family. Simply put, Skip is a success.
“Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.”
Frank Pittman
Skip and Dan
Skip and Becca
Skip and Kristen (and me)
Ann Taylor and Skip
As I write this blog I find looking through the pictures of our love story I realize I should probably do that more often than I do. It’s been a really amazing journey. And I have barely skimmed the surface of the past thirty seven years.
“Real love stories never have endings.”
—Richard Bach
John and Carol and Skip and Linda on a Cape Cod adventure before children
Skip and Linda on a European adventure
The Skipper on his boat
Back when our hair was its natural color
Waiting for our first baby
Skip and Linda on our honeymoon
My favorite wedding day picture 1980
Skip Shaw – the godfather
Hopefully we have many more years to continue to write our love story. I’m really glad Cheryl was busy that night thirty seven years ago. And I am really glad out of all the women you had to choose from you chose me.
“I got you to hold my hand
I got you to understand
I got you to walk with me
I got you to talk with me
I got you to kiss goodnight
I got you to hold me tight
I got you, I won’t let go
I got you to love me so
I got you babe”
“I Got You Babe” by Sonny Bono
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