No partridges, or calling birds or French hens, but on the first day of Christmas her true love gave her a dozen roses.

David was Amanda’s “true love”.  She had loved him since they were in the five-year-olds class at church. In fact, Amanda’s mom, Dora, remembers the exact night her daughter fell in love. Amanda came home from church with her eyes aglow over “the nice boy in the bow tie” who let her use his blue crayon during craft time.  (Yes, I did dress my little boy in a bow tie.)

Amanda says she liked him because he was nice.  As David’s mom I feel particularly blessed by this. When David was growing up he had a few heartbreaking years of dealing with “cool” boys who were mean to him. I always told him “It’s better to be nice than to be cool.”

I must have told him that a couple of hundred times. We laugh about that now.

The niceness paid off.

So Amanda loved him from afar – too shy to even look straight at him, or speak to him.  And although David was nice to her when their paths crossed at church, he never really noticed her. One of Dora’s favorite stories is when Amanda came home from junior high youth group and excitedly told her that David had said “Hi” to her. “Well, did you say hi back?” her mom asked. “NO!” an embarrassed Amanda buried her head in her pillow.

Things changed dramatically one fateful evening in 2003. Our families had begun to get to know each other, and the Nuttings invited us over for dinner.

We were sitting around the table talking. Most of us were talking, that is – Amanda was still painfully shy. Then for some reason, to make some point, David burst out singing a line from Weird Al’s “Albuquerque” song.  And – wonder of wonders – Amanda joined in! They both knew every word of the 11 minute 13 second song, and they sang it together in perfect harmony!

“I like her!” David enthused, as we were driving home.  “She’s really cool!”

He found out just how cool she was about a week later when our families went to a Modesto Nuts Baseball game together.  He found out she loved to read, she was a walking encyclopedia about all things relating to animals, she was good at video games …and best of all, she liked baseball!

But David says that was the first time in his life he went to a baseball game and didn’t pay attention to the game.

Amanda was 15 and David was 17 when they began to “like each other” officially; and when Amanda was old enough, they began to call it dating.

Amanda discovered that David really enjoyed chick flicks, and when David took her up in the hills deer hunting he discovered that Amanda was a better rifle shot than he.

When our family went on a llama pack trip with some friends, Amanda came along.

When Amanda’s entire extended family went to Hawaii to celebrate her grandparents’ 50^th anniversary, David was invited to join them.  They had been dating for a year when they called us from Maui to tell us they had kissed for the first time on the beach at sunset.

And so, on December 13th, David’s Twelve Days of Christmas began, as he gave Amanda a dozen red roses.

The following day, the 11^th day of Christmas, he gave her 11 sappy love notes.

On the 10^th day of Christmas he gave her a $10 gift certificate for a local bookstore.

On the 9^th day of Christmas he gave her 9 bath oil beads

Amanda loves V8, so on the 8^th day of Christmas he gave her 8 cans of V8.

On the 7^th day of Christmas he took her to the Orient House for dinner. We all love the Orient House and we always get the same thing. When the employees see us come in they know what we order. They  always laugh and say “Two Number Sevens?”

On the 6^th day of Christmas he gave her a multiple picture frame he made with 6 pictures of the two of them.

On the 5^th day of Christmas he gave her 5 chocolate truffles.

On the 4^th day of Christmas he gave her 4 soft socks.

David and his two longtime best friends, Kyle and Shane have always called themselves “The Fab Three” …and so it was natural that the third day of Christmas would involve The Fab Three. Amanda’s mom let the boys sneak into their house very early in the morning to make Amanda a “Fab-Three-Breakfast-in-Bed”

On the 2nd  day of Christmas he gave her 2 compilation CD’s of country music.

By this time Amanda had begun to see a pattern. What would her true love give her on Christmas Eve – the first day of Christmas?

On that 1^st day of Christmas he gave her a package with a big #1 on it. Inside was a scarf he had knitted himself. (Complete with puff balls!)

When the scarf was warmly in place around her neck he told her that they were going to the snow. And after an day of playing in the snow he said he had one more gift for the first day of Christmas.

Out of his backpack David pulled a box with stenciled letters that read, “The Amanda Box.” In this box he had kept a keepsake from every date they had ever been on. Amanda had found the box once before, and David told her that the only time she would ever be able to open it would be if they got married. Now she was wondering what was going on! She eagerly opened the box and found a large river rock inside. A note said, “I told you, you have to wait!” Amanda looked up curiously, and there was David on his knee in the snow. He was holding his real gift for the First Day of Christmas – an engagement ring. He was asking her to marry him.

Nope…no partridges or calling birds or French hens or swimming swans or laying geese…just sweet lovebirds. They are now in their third year of marriage – with a coopful of chickens in their back yard, and a baby in their arms, and a song in their heart!

I was startled to hear the doorbell late one afternoon.  I wasn’t expecting anyone…at least not for a couple of hours.

 “Surprise!”  My mom stood on the front porch.  She had decided to drive up from Southern California for a vist, taking the chance that I’d be home if she drove 300 miles and knocked on my door. (Obviously she knew I didn’t have much of a social life!)

 Well, I was home, but this evening I was actually getting ready for a date.

 “Hi mom!”  I was glad to see her, but as I explained, it was too late to break my date with Steve. I told her I would cancel my babysitter, and come home as early as I could.  Mom and six-year-old Matthew could play games keep each other company.  They were both happy with that plan.

 As I got dressed that evening, I had no idea that I was dressing for the last date of my life as an “unattached single woman”.

I thought about the previous weekend – my afternoon with John Paladini.  This dinner with Steve had already been planned, but now my heart wasn’t really in it. I had liked John more than I had expected last Sunday.  He had enjoyed it too, I guess. He sent me a thank you note.  (Who in the world sends a thank you note “for sharing your day with me”?)

 I think was a little smitten, but John hadn’t called again…

 And now, here it was, Friday night.  I was taking hot rollers out of my hair when the phone rang.

 It was John! He said he had enjoyed our date on Sunday and wondered if I was free to do something the following evening, Saturday.

 My mind was racing. Mom had just driven all this way up to see me, and I was heading out the door on a date I was less than excited about.  I couldn’t very well ask her to stay home a second night and watch Matthew while I went out again. Even if it was with John. Rats!

 “Do you like to play Scrabble?” I asked him tentatively.

 I told him about my mom’s surprise visit, and asked if he’d like to come over and play Scrabble with us.

 He immediately said yes!

 You may remember that I had somewhat frivolously put Scrabble on my list, but of course John knew nothing of that. He had played a dozen times or so in his life, while I was a bit of a fanatic.

 John, my mom and I played two games of Scrabble the following night, and then mom went to bed. John and I played a third game.  That’s about six hours of words, on and off the board.

 Long after midnight we said goodnight.  It would be many weeks before we held hands or kissed, but that was the night we began to fall in love.

 As an epilogue – we have continued to play Scrabble since we’ve been married.  We have kept a cumulative score all these years and we’re well matched. On our ninth anniversary our score was tied. As of today John has 53, 890 and I have 54,144.

I was not exactly Ado Annie from Oklahoma, but in my earlier years I did have trouble saying no. So when John asked me to go with him to “The Valentine Friendship Banquet” I said yes, before I even thought about it. And then it struck me. Oh great. I’ve only known this guy for a few days. I’ve only been going to this church for a few weeks. And I agree to go to a singles’ “Valentines Friendship Banquet” with him! What have I done?

In the first place, I was pretty sure that “friendship” was a misnomer. And if I showed up with a date we would be automatically linked together as a couple. I fretted about it all that Sunday, and later when I went back to church for the evening service, the first thing I did was look for John. I needed to tell him I would enjoy hanging out with him at the “banquet” but I didn’t think I should go with him. I awkwardly tried to explain my reasoning and he was very understanding, so I suggested that we might go out and have coffee (an undate) just to see if we would even like to date each other.

About two years earlier I had underlined 1 Timothy 5:14 in my bible: “So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households…” I compiled a list of attributes I would look for in The Man I Would Marry, and wrote it inside the back cover of my bible. I determined that I wouldn’t seriously date anyone unless there was some promise or possibility of marriage. I wanted to write my list while I was singularly unattached, because it needed to be a list of what was really important and admirable to me – unadulterated by concessions I might have made after I met some hot guy or got into a relationship.

And believe me. No attractive man paid the slightest attention to me for all those months after I wrote the list. I even wondered why I had bothered to write it since I seemed to be destined to be single for the rest of my life. I waited and prayed and got very frustrated…and waited and prayed some more.

On February 15, with my list fresh in my mind, I went to Marie Callender’s with John for our should-we-date? date. And we sat there and talked for three wonderful hours.

We went to the Valentine Friendship Banquet, but not together. I watched John, and admired his easy grace and the friendliness he showed to everyone. At the end of the evening, as we both stayed late and helped clean up the hall, he asked me to go to a Dallas Holm concert with him the next day. And I said yes. I had come to the conclusion that I didn’t mind if everyone in my new church linked our names together!

To this very day I encourage single women to pray and make a list of what they admire most in a man. And make it at a time when they are not interested in someone. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I was giving God my order, but I needed to have it written down so I would remember what was important to me when butterflies and hormones entered the picture.

I wrote my wish list (prayer list) in the back of my bible on August 24, 1981, and did not meet John till February 4, 1984. It was hard to wait all those months, but God was faithful to give me a pretty darn good fit to my heart’s desire!

My List

1. Loves Jesus first and foremost in his life
2. Sensitive, kind and nice
3. A good father to Matthew
4. Able to have more children
5. Doesn’t smoke
6. Doesn’t drink, but is not legalistic about it
7. Intelligent
8. Nice looking; big and tall
9. Good manners
10. Makes eye contact
11. Not a TV addict. Likes Scrabble etc
12. Likes to sing. (playing guitar would be a bonus)
13. Not financially poor

I was in a sociology class at Modesto Junior College, and our assignment was to find someone whose family had immigrated to America, –  to interview them, their parents and grandparents, and then write a paper on the Americanization of the family.  (What luck that I had just met that cute Italian guy at the singles’ party!)

Are you Italian? I asked John – just to open up the conversation. “Yes,” he nodded, smiling.

“Are you full-blooded Italian?”

“Yes.”  His eyes were still twinkling, but he was giving me a quizzical look.

 I explained my assignment and asked if I could interview his family.

(Now when John talks about this today he tells people he was my science project.  And to tell the truth, in the months to come we did spend a fair amount of time sitting together in a science lab teaching four rats to press the bar in a Skinner box.  But that may be a story for another day.)

None of John’s family lived in Modesto, but he said he’d be glad to take me to meet them. 

We drove to Novato, in Marin County to meet Grandpa Guido and Aunt Anna. I learned that Guido and his wife Gelsomina came to America from Lucca, Italy in 1924, bringing their three-year-old little girl, Anna. And I was told that Guido’s brothers, Cherubino, Nello and Primo also immigrated here around the same time. 

Grandpa Guido working the land in Novato, CA.

Boy, was I excited! Guido, Nello, Primo, Cherubino, Gelsomina, Anna… You don’t get much more Italian than that!  My project was off to a flying start!

The following week we drove about 100 miles north toWoodland to meet John’s parents and interview them. I was pleasantly surprised that he was so willing to help me, and apparently so interested in my project!

 I felt a little awkward, though, when I saw that John’s mother had prepared a wonderful fancy dinner, and when she remarked more than once that she was so pleased to meet John’s friend and to see her son so happy.

I didn’t know how to explain that her son was just helping me out with this school project… 

But I had to acknowledge that the Woodland Paladinis were the nicest family I ever spent an evening with. 

I learned that Guido had three sons after he came to America. He named them Franco, Louis and Georgio, and they later Americanized their names to Frank, Louie and George.  Frank named  his own sons John, Mark and Ray. This family seemed “made to order” for my sociology project.

Little did I know, as I set out on those long drives, armed with my trusty cassette tape recorder and list of questions, that I was  conducting interviews with the wonderful people who would become my new family within a year.

There must have been duplicate lists because I got calls from three different people, telling me about a singles’ get-together at Steve’s house. I had only been to the singles’ group twice, but I enjoyed it and I was so happy to be included. I had told my room-mate about it, and for the last few Sundays we had been going to Vintage Faire Christian Center, the church that sponsored it.

“Oh I should get Steve’s phone number to leave with my babysitter,” I remembered suddenly, as the caller was getting ready to hang up.

“Okay.” He recited a phone number and then paused and quickly corrected himself. “Oh no, wait a minute… That’s not Steve’s number. That’s a guy named John Paladino.”

So I erased “John Paladino’s” phone number and wrote down the correct one.

I had not met John at the Christmas caroling party several weeks earlier. In fact, I found out later that he had never been to the singles’ group.  Someone, knowing he was single, had just put his name on the call list.

I later found out that he, too, had been called three times with an invitation to the party.

And that his name was not John Paladino, but John Paladini.

My roommate and I were in giggly high spirits as we got ready for the evening. “Here, wear this on your shirt,” Barbie deadpanned. She had cut a piece of Christmas wrap out of a big sheet which had the repeated word MerryMerryMerry in black lettering on silver foil.  The small piece she handed me said “MerryMe”. I obediently pinned it on my shirt and we howled with laughter.

(I left Barbie’s Marry Me sign in the car when we got to Steve’s apartment, but it turned out to be a lovely foreshadowing!)

John was in the kitchen when I came through the front door and I noticed he was looking toward me and sort of smiling. He told later that he had seen me at church and thought I was cute, but he didn’t know I was single until that moment.

Barbie went straight to the kitchen with our potluck contribution, but I came more slowly, stopping every few steps to talk with someone.  By the time I made it to the kitchen Barbie and John were chatting, and they both looked toward me.  “This is my room mate,” Barbie waved negligently, “and Andee, this is John Paladini.”

John Paladini – the name with the wrong number. 

Now this is where it gets kind of fuzzy…According to John, at that point I said something like, “I’ve got your number, buddy!”

At any rate, by the end of the evening I did have his number and it remains our phone number to this very day.

(to be continued)

It was called a “Wishcraft Project”.  During the first half of the semester we were supposed to do all kinds of self-searching, journaling our thoughts in a notebook. We were not told that at the mid-point of the semester we would evaluate our writing and decide what was missing from our lives.  And that the rest of the semester would be dedicated to brainstorming ways to make those dreams come true.

I was taking a personal psychology class at Modesto Junior  College.  With Matthew in kindergarten now, I was free to pursue some kind of a degree, but I felt a little at loose ends. I really didn’t have a plan for my education. All I had ever wanted was be a wife and mother. Now I was a widow and a mother.

So there I sat at the half-way point of the semester, looking over my writing. I really didn’t have a lot of wishes to craft. As a Christian I had a satisfying, even exciting, relationship with God. I had an adorable little boy and a nice house to live in. Social Security provided us with enough security to get by comfortably.  The only unfulfilled dream that kept surfacing in my writing was “a wonderful man” to share my life with.  And we were supposed to dedicate the rest of the semester to making that missing dream come true!

“Oh great,” I complained to my room-mate, “I’m supposed to make it my class goal to find a spouse! How embarrassing!”  It was too late to drop the class.  Not to mention the fact that I had already put many hours of work into those notebooks.

“Just do it for the grade. Make it tongue-in-cheek and have fun with it.” Barbie shrugged.

(I would say Barbie ‘counseled me wisely’, but Barbie always shrugged. She was a most placid and pragmatic girl.)

“You can do it,” she encouraged me.  So I did.

Our next assignment was to make a “flow chart” to measure our progress.  I was supposed to post this chart in a prominent place on my wall, apparently to keep myself on task.  Okay…I decided to be tongue-in-cheek.  I drew a little teardrop on the far right of the chart, with the words “Lonely Me.”  On the opposite side of the chart I drew a red heart and the words, “A Wonderful Husband”.  Now I was supposed to list possibilities of things I could do to help me toward my goal.  Baby steps. I was supposed to draw a line each time I tried one of the avenues, and thus I would chart my progress across the three-foot expanse of poster board.

Tongue-in-cheek.  Barbie might drawl, “Hey, there’s a cute mailman. You should put him on your flow chart.”

It was fun, but I made no progress.  I did post some possibilities though. I could go to Parents without Partners.  I could go hang out at bars. I could place a classified ad in the paper. (These were the days before personal computers, let alone E-Harmony.)  I could go to some church singles’ group.  Ick! Ick! Ick! Ick!

None of the options held any appeal.  I especially did not want to go to a church singles’ group!

“If God wants me to get married He can put me in the path of the man of my dreams who will be working at the library or a bookstore,” I told Barbie.  But I was supposed to be making lines across that flow chart.  Rats.

I was chatting with Toni, a friend in one of my classes.  “Hey- ” Toni suddenly interrupted whatever we were talking about. “Would you like to come to a Christmas caroling party at my church?  It’s a singles’ thing.” (Oh yuck.) I explained that I didn’t go to “singles’ things” at churches. Then I remembered my flow chart.  If I went to Toni’s church thing I could draw my first line on that silly flow chart…

I went to the gathering, and realized how much I had generalized and misjudged singles’ groups en masse. Everyone was really nice! Nothing could have been less like my pre-conceived idea.

Not only was I able to make that first line on my flow chart, but I met John, and before too long “Lonely Me” got “A Wonderful Husband!”

(continues here)