..with this gun...I mean, ring....

March 12, 1985

It was a day that no young, love-struck girl could ever forget.

The Proposal

You know those stories of incredible thought, precision planning and meticulous events that end up with a million hits on youtube?

...the music montage of the couple's favorite love song, with all of their family in on it - ending up on a beach with rose petals and sea shells, and a man in a tuxedo  - down on one knee - reciting the perfect words of love and devotion...

yea, it was nothing like that...

My story was none the less - for lack of a better word...epic

It all began one day just before Christmas in 1984.  I was invited to a Christmas dinner at Dan Reed's house for all his friends.  The chef was none other than Daniel B. Adkins - of the renown Coffee Break...master of the famous Friday night Turkey Dinner buffet.   I had seen this cute red head before - at Lloyd's Rollercade - a few weeks before this.  He had quite the moves on the rink, a gorgeous gold Camero, and now...he can cook?  I must say I was interested.

After a few more encounters (trivial pursuit at Arlene McCommish's house, comet watching with Nathan Jenkins), I knew that this was a pretty special guy.

76 days later...he proposed

I knew that it was coming...sometime....but as he picked me up in his old, baby-blue F150 pick up that evening, he asked if I wanted to go to Calgary to pick out a ring.

Well, duh!  Yes!  He said something about not knowing how to ask and I said, "just ask".

He said, "okay, do you want to marry me?"

I replied, " Sure"...to which he replied...

"You are sitting on your ring"

Reaching under my butt I found a small plastic bag from Canadian Tire
(incredible foreshadowing here)

In that bag was a little purple box from Ben Moss jewelers.

...my ring...

We had looked at a few rings at different places, but a cook at the Coffee Break didn't make a whole lot of cash, so I never thought that he could have purchased it already.  I was wrong.

I was right about the lack of cash though...but then I found out the rest of the story.

A few weeks before this, my beloved took a prized gun...a Winchester model 96 - over/under shotgun...to Bud Haynes Auction to sell in order to purchase

...my ring...

His family thought he was a little crazy.  His dad thought he was totally crazy. Is this girl really worth sacrificing something like this?

He thought so...

He still does...

Who needs a million-hit-youtube-sensation proposal when you have that?

Not me...