Scotia Barrens, Late Summer: Pathways of Green

The only story I know how to tell . . . is a love story.

It was a pleasant morning and my husband wanted to go for a jog. So we headed to the closed road in the Scotia Barrens by the shooting range. It was sunny, with blue skies, and there were many wildflowers and pollinators. The pathways are lush and green. The dude in red in the distance, the jogger, is my husband.

It is beautiful here all the time, as you know by now from my journal, but I have a special spot in my heart for late August. It's a time of transitions, a wistful time. Summer is starting to think about turning into fall, and fall just might be my favorite of all the seasons. The kids are getting ready to go back to school. The temperatures are beginning to drop (HOORAY!!!). The world seems full of possibilities; I am full of hope, and energy!

It is also the time of year when I met my husband and we went on our first date. Well, yes, I was indeed engaged to someone else at the time, but there were . . . issues. We'd agreed to see other people during our separation - that guy went away to grad school in Kentucky, and I would shortly accept my first full-time job at Penn State. I went along to Kentucky; didn't like it there much; came back. No, I would never, ever leave my beloved central Pennsylvania, not for anyone, though I didn't know it at the time.

I went to aerobics class on a Wednesday night, and stopped in to do my laundry at a nearby laundromat afterwards. And in walked this gorgeous dude whose wrecked car was sitting outside. We chatted. We hit it off. He asked for my number. I gave it to him. Two weeks later, we went on our first date. And that was that, as they say. By Thanksgiving, I'd sent the diamond ring back to the other fella and said my farewells. 

We dated a long time (22 years), and talked about getting married up in the Finger Lakes, and staying in a cabin there. But before all of that could happen, he got very sick and landed in the hospital in Altoona. I had just bought the Journey CD Revelation and was listening to it when I went to see him there. He discharged himself against medical advice because he didn't like the doctor and didn't trust him. We also weren't married yet and he did not have health insurance.

I was afraid he was going to die on me at any moment, but it was HIS choice what to do with his life and they were HIS medical choices to make. He proposed from his hospital bed in Altoona. I said Yes. We couldn't get a justice of the peace in Centre County to marry us fast enough, so we picked one in nearby Blair County instead. We drove from the hospital that day to Blair County's county seat (Hollidaysburg) to get our marriage license. 

How this story ends: We got married four days later, secretly, in a private service at the justice of the peace in Tyrone, with no friends or family present. He was instantly covered under my health insurance. From there, I took him straight to the hospital at Mount Nittany. 

He was transported - on our wedding night, as I sat praying and crying in the waiting room - to Hershey, where they saved his life so we could begin our happily-ever-after. We got hitched, he got better, and we have pretty much lived happily ever after since then. 

So here's to all of the big thoughts and feelings and transitions of beautiful late August, when that love story began, and to its pathways of green. And to the jogger whom I love, my husband. Long may our happiness last! Love never ends, though the pathway to get there may seem long and crooked at times! LOL!

We need a soundtrack song and this was the one that was playing on the car stereo as we went to get our marriage license, in a great big hurry, all those years ago: Journey, After All These Years.

P.S. An earlier telling of this story appears here.