I have aways been pretty lucky in life. I had two great wives. My first was an amazing happenstance. I was a senior walking through a hallway in Portland's Franklin High school one day. As I passed the door of the auditorium I heard someone playing 'Deep Purple' at the school piano, my then favorite song.

   Out of curiosity I opened the door and saw a pretty, brown haired girl on the stage, playing to an empty house. 

  I listened for a few minutes and closed the door and went away.

   That same week I was knocking on a door in an apartment house two blocks from where I lived. I was interested in a beautiful blonde girl named Orpha who lived there when I heard a voice coming from down the hall yelling " Orpha is not home."

   I stopped knocking and walked down the hall. A gorgeous brown haired girl stood in her doorway. I introduced myself because it was the same girl I had seen at the piano earlier that day. I was stunned a little by the coincidence and asked her name and did she go to Franklin? Did she play the piano that day?   She confirmed she was that girl. What a strange chance meeting. Kismet?

  She lived with her Mother and they had been living in Seattle until earlier that year. Her name was Lee Bower. She had attended Garfield High up here. She also was dating the star baseball player at our school and he was moving to Salem to play semipro baseball. I asked her out to a dance at Jantzen Beach Park, a favorite hang out for teens back then. 

  Wonder of wonders two years later she became my bride. We moved to Seattle where I worked at Boeing and she worked at Best Apparel. She later worked at Boeing too.
                        
We have six sons. Five by Lee, one by Elsbeth McDaniel, mother of two daughters and a son.  I married Beth a year after losing Lee in 1968.

   Beth was everybody's favorite waitress at White Center's best restaurant, the Epicure. Beth was a good sport and joined me in my outdoor activities like fishing and golf. She also tried skiing although that was asking a lot. 

I loved to ski at Mt Hood so I tried to teach Beth on a battered pair which I restored by installing metal edges and painting them bright orange. Her son had learned from his dad, who was a former instructor, as did my two new daughters. 

Beth was contented using the beginners rope tow and was not really enthusiastic so she gave up and tramped to the lodge. She entered the rest room still wearing foggy glasses and noticed a young man entering the toilet and challenged his action.  She shouted,"young man you are in the ladies rest room."
   The intruder smiled and " sorry, Ma’am, I am afraid you had trouble seeing through your foggy glasses. You are in the men’s room.”

Thoroughly embarrassed, she beat a hasty retreat and never ever tried the sport again. 

I think she also detested the orange painted skis.