How My Dad Courted (and Married) Mom

Allow me to introduce my parents to you all. My father, Thomas "Tom" Brant Kauffman, and my mother, Virginia "Ginger" Ann Fosket Kauffman, were not exactly able to guess that they would marry each other initially, not without spending the time to get to know each other. In fact, they didn't know each other at all back then. If it weren't for the interference of my dad's little sister, who was my mom's best friend at the time, then maybe they would not have met.

Well, I'm glad that they did meet. If they didn't, I wouldn't have been born.

Here's the story of how my parents met... in a paraphrased manner because I don't have all the details remembered, nor am I expected to, to be honest.

It was the year 1988 of the Anno Domini calendar, and my dad was getting ready to settle down to form a family. He knew that there was a woman out there, just for him, and that he needed to find her. It was going to be a long quest for the perfect woman... until he learned of my mother, which shortened the quest by many years.

Now, at this point, it was a whirlwind romance that effectively said that they were made for each other. However, they didn't know each other that well, which meant that they needed to do some work to know each other perfectly well. It helped matters when Auntie Carol was able to tell dad about mom.

The majority of the story goes as follows: Boy meets Girl (or, in this case, Man meets Woman), both parties are oblivious to the true nature of the other's feelings, and then they get to meet properly in what is a controlled environment. It was a good thing that it happened that way.

Auntie Carol, bless her heart, was playing the role of the matchmaker to the best of her ability. How she pulled that off was simple: she met with my mother for lunch, then she would tell her big brother, my father, about the things mom would say to her. Dad learned a lot about the kind of person my mom is.

One day, before the two of them met properly in a controlled environment, Mom was talking with one of her other friends when Dad accidentally bumped into her. It was Easter Sunday that year, in April, to be exact.

A few days later, Mom met Dad again while trying to loan Auntie Carol a book, only this was where Mom became more than a little rude about the situation. She ran off on him, having left the book with him to give his sister, even when he tried to tell her it'd be rude to run off.

On April 12th that same year, after Easter Sunday, Auntie Carol invited Mom over for dinner to properly introduce her to Dad. The two of them were rather quick to hit it off... after some apologies were made to soothe wounded pride on both sides.

Dad took Mom out for meals during the times when they started dating, the two of them enjoying the time together, though it was not yet cemented in their vow to get married to each other until shortly before they went to the Kauffman Family Farm in Houghton, New York. The day they became engaged to get married was 8/9/1988, which would be almost 34 years ago by the time of this writing.

So, with all of that said, I'm rather grateful that my parents met and got married. The day of their 34th wedding anniversary will be February 25th next year (as of this writing), and I hope to spend some time with them, to make sure they know how I feel for them... even if I am the baby of the family.