Memory Monday

“Relationships don't always make sense. Especially from the outside” 
― Sarah Dessen,

   At my last memory  I was telling of my first year to teach and my relationship with Dick, future husband.  He has now been transferred to Stead Airforce Base, Reno, Nevada.  Stead no longer exists; it was a small base near the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The main purpose of Stead was for  survival military training and helicopter training.   The guys were taken out into the mountains and dropped and had to make their way back to base.  Because of his college major, Dick is, as he would later say, "flying a large metal desk".  He was in finance working in an office on base.

An aerial view of Stead AFB Reno, Nevada

We are writing to each other pretty frequently.  It is now spring and he writes ..."why don't I come out to Reno instead of  signing a contract to teach again in NKC for the following year." My response back is "Is this a proposition or a proposal???" I wasn't about to go running out there if he was just lonely and wanting company!  He counters with...A Proposal!  I declined the offer for the next year of teaching and made plans to go to Reno...I had a car and my faithful German Shepherd   Dagmar (who is huge by now) so what could go wrong?

At this time, neither of us had met each others' families, outside of Cousin Bonnie whom I introduced in an earlier memory who taught right across the hall from me.  So I was quite surprised to get a letter from Dick's mom, inviting me to dinner on a Sunday out to their farm.  They were farmers, residing north east of Kansas City by about an hour and a half.  The nearest town to them was Bogard, Missouri, a small rural town where Dick had gone to school, graduating with a class of 12!  I accepted the invitation and received another letter with directions on how to get there.  I guess they thought I might not be able to find the place because we made plans for me to meet Dick's brother, Fay in Bogard and I would follow him out there.  The road at that time was not nearly as well maintained as it became in future years.  We wound around on narrow gravel roads,  crossing a one-way bridge, and finally came to their farm...the house set on a hill overlooking the fields and barns

The Harold Dodds' farm

All the way out there following Fay, I am thinking "What in the world am I doing? I don't know any of these people!  What had Dick told them about me?"  But of course my fears were unnecessary; nicer people you could not find.  It was a bit awkward though; my salvation was Dick's little sister, Janice who was 14 years younger than he, only seven at this time.  She wanted me to play games with her and that I could do!  When we sat down to dinner, Dick's dad, Harold, asked me about the price of eggs in the city.  Other than livestock and grain farming, raising chickens to sell eggs was their main business. Well, I had no idea, but I didn't want them to think I wasn't smart about my money so I said my roommate did most of the shopping; I did the cooking and we just split the total grocery expenses.

The Dodds' house many years later after a new owner added a deck on the front.

An aerial view of the farm taken probably in the seventies 

I survived and even found my way back to the city with no harm done!  I guess I got a good report because Bonnie knew all about it by the next day at school!!!