Walt Staples – Real Life Romance – Part 2 of 3

Shannon here: Science Fiction author, Walt Staples shares how he proposed to his wife. Every time you comment, your name goes in the drawing for 3 Heartsong Presents title, my latest release – Rodeo Dust, A Promise Forged by Cara Putman, and Clara and the Cowboy by Erica Vetsch. 1 winner – 3 books. Deadline: Jan 14th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Walt:

Part 2: Popping the Question by Walt Staples

Jimmy Stewart would be ashamed of me. Even after he showed me the proper way to ask for a lady’s hand in any number of movies, I still managed to flub it when push came to shove.
Watching Jimmy, I should have been dressed in a nice suit with a–for its time–power tie. Instead, I’m in a t-shirt advertising the 1^st Marine Division and khaki Bombay Bloomers (British military shorts).
Mister Everyman escorts his lady home in a limousine, after an evening of dinner and dancing at the kind of place where the waiter brings home my monthly salary each night. Me, I tool Jan back to the apartment she shares with her sister in a ’73 Maverick, that I’m still making payments on, from dinner at Shoney’s Big Boy, after a day at Jungle Safari Land.
Strike Four! The tall, gawky eternal adolescent falls silent, stares nervously at the love of his life, swallows, and drops to a knee as he stutters his question while extending forward the open box with the hyper-caret diamond engagement ring enthroned.
Jan and I, we’ve been sitting on the couch yammering away for hours when it strikes me that we’ve been discussing what we’re going to name the kids for the last forty-some minutes. I looked at Jan and asked, “Uh, I’m getting the feeling somewhere along the line I more or less asked you to marry me…and I think, maybe, you said ‘yes?’”
She considered it for a moment, then grinned at me. “Yes. Yes, I believe I did.”
Yep, I made a complete hash of it. We married fives months later and, with two kids–indeed blessed with those names–we’ve been together 35 years and counting.
About Walt: Walt Staples spent far too many years thinking the unthinkable for a living. He maintains this has had no effect on him though he admits to a predilection for collecting odd people and an inordinate thirst for Dr. Pepper. While his physical position is generally indeterminable, his heart is firmly located at 38.9N, 78.2W. His work appears in a number of online publications. He is a member of the Catholic Writers’ Guild, the Lost Genre Guild, and the Marine Corps Association, much to the chagrin of each. His blog, “Variable Credence,” resides at: http://gkfields.blogspot.com.
Come back Jan 13th when you are cordially invited to Walt and Jan’s wedding.