Late Bloomer: Three Days, Three Gifts

Carnations Thursday,  Sunflowers Friday

Thursday afternoon, as I sat by the pool of my apartment complex, I heard murmurs, "Flowers, somebody's getting flowers," from the BBQ pit behind me. I craned my head around to the left to see who was bringing posies to a lucky someone, just as a bouquet appeared over my right shoulder. One of the people at my table had been practicing "Besame Mucho" on his guitar, and the others began to laugh. "A romantic song and a romantic gesture." It was. It's been many years since a gentleman gave me flowers. I'd invited a friend who to dinner that night and to watch a video. He'd meant to show up at my doorstep with the flowers. Instead, he spotted me on the patio and knew there was no way he could ease his way past me on the way to his building with the flowers without me spying him.

Friday afternoon when I arrived at my apartment door, I found another bouquet fastened to my doorknob. Just that morning I'd given a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Young at Heart to a resident in my building. She'd read my story, "The Bet," about how I met my late husband. Then a few hours later, as she left her physical therapist's office, she spotted a flower vender hawking freshly cut sunflowers and decided she had to get some for me. My story, that relates the role sunflowers played in the early days of my relationship with Ken Wilson, is pasted below.

This morning I met with one of the Los Angeles County Peace Corps recruiters, who is recruiting her own mother and her mother's close friend, a professor at East Los Angeles College. The women wanted to talk with someone who had served as an older Volunteer. Since I was 50 when I joined back in 1987, Tiffany Tai thought of me, so we rendezvoused at a nearby Spires. Tiffany brought me dragon fruit and Dr. Shirley Huang Batman brought me a handmade pinwheel pen, with a butterfly jewel from Lukang, Changwa, Taiwan.

I never tire of learning...and today I have learned about both a fruit and a town previously unknown to me. Here's some facts about each:

Quick facts about Lugang:

• It's one of Taiwan's oldest towns,
  
• Lukang means "Deer Harbor",
• it was central Taiwan's most populous city until the 20th century,
• Lukang's port used to bustle with immigrants and trading junks from mainland China (during the Qing Dynasty),
• the town is well known for having the most gorgeous temples on the island, curiously curved streets and fine traditional handicrafts.

Quick facts about Dragon Fruit:

• Pitahaya has edible miniscule black seeds, similar to a kiwi's.
• The skin is NOT edible.
• Indigenous to Central America, it is also grown and exported from several Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand and Vietnam. 
•  While it may seem a little strange at first, it's easy to get to the fruit. Simply slice lengthwise and either scoop out the flesh, or quarter it and peel back the leathery skin.
• Dragon fruit provides health benefits, from a strengthened immune system and faster healing of bruises and wounds to fewer respiratory problems.

The Bet

(from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart)

Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?
~Frank Scully

At 62 I didn’t expect to find love. But on New Year’s Eve, l998, when online dating still was considered more risky than routine, I resolved to try Socialnet.com. Long divorced and just returned from a decade overseas with Peace Corps, I worked in Little Rock, far from my California origins. Dateless for eons, I pictured casual Saturday outings to view Renoirs at the Arts Center or to share fried chicken and a hike at Pinnacle Mountain State Park. Love was for others. I’d settle for companionship.

So masquerading as “Dumpling,” I posted my online bio and personal preferences, and prepared to review my matches. My inbox promptly began to fill with a list of potential dates’ screen names and the distance they lived from my Arkansas home. To learn more, I’d have to click on the profile. Sometimes I sighed at the quirkiness of the computer matchmaker. One match, Bettor, I left unopened…the man lived over 2,000 miles away. Not a good bet for Saturdays in the park.

Those nearby didn’t always prove to be good bets, either. A Kentucky widower wrote that if I helped him raise his four teenage sons he’d provide me with a new washing machine. I passed. A Wichita Falls adventurer invited me on a rafting excursion on the notoriously challenging Cossatot River. We’d have to wait, though, until he convinced his wife that he deserved a weekend away. I declined. An Oklahoman declared he loved my moniker, Dumpling. He bet that I was one enticing fat mama. I didn’t respond.

I finally agreed to meet one local widower for supper at Cajun’s Wharf. The riverside setting, though, reminded him of the seafood dishes his late wife had prepared. Soon he was sobbing into his devilled crab as he recounted her technique with halibut, trout and flounder. By the time he began to wail about her bouillabaisse, I’d finished with my barbecued shrimp…and our date.

Then one day at work my admin assistant, Bev, asked how Social.net worked. I pulled up my list, which for months had been headed by Bettor’s unopened profile.

I ran my cursor over his name. “I’ve never written this guy because he’s too far away,” I explained. “And with a name like Bettor, I suspect he’s a gambler. But let’s peek.” 

I clicked on his profile and quickly scanned it. Hmmm. Like me, he appreciated jazz, art, books, dogs, cooking, and travel. What’s more…he sounded sane.

I glanced up at Bev. “I’ve been to the ends of the earth with Peace Corps, so what’s two thousand miles?” I pounded out a quick paragraph introducing myself.

Bev eyed me. “What if he turns out to be The One?”

The next morning I had a response in my inbox.

“My name’s Ken and I think I’m in love,” I read. “I value a coherent message. Bettor is my Nissan’s vanity plate, which amuses friends here in Reno. I deal poker at Circus Circus, but don’t gamble myself, as my three boys will attest.” He added a link to his domain page, dubbed Sunflower.

I hesitated before clicking on it. I didn’t want any kinky surprises. So I was delighted to find that he’d filled his webpage with photos of his three grown sons and assorted grandkids.

 “You and your sons each are more handsome than the others,” I wrote back.

We corresponded with caution, gradually building trust, and then shared our private e-mail addresses. Eventually we traded phone numbers. Friends warned about ax murderers, but I believed in Ken’s sincerity. “I don’t even own a tiny hatchet,” he’d assured me.

Sunday mornings, home from his graveyard shift, Ken would phone. He e-mailed jokes to start my day, and sent gifts, a wooden car, a casino chip, framed photos. Then one day I opened a small box to find a ring with a diamond sunflower. It had belonged to his mother, he wrote.

In turn, I mailed cards with sunflower motifs and a motion-activated potted sunflower that played “You Are My Sunshine,” the only song he claimed he knew the words to, aside from the theme from “Paladin.” We debated how and where we could meet in person, beginning to realize we were falling in love. “I’ve never had a doubt,” Ken swore.

I decided to attend my high school reunion in California and then visit my father’s widow in Napa. Ken drove from Reno to her place to meet me, and we toured the nearby wineries. When we paused for supper that first evening, the waiters all buzzed around after we described our long Internet romance. They produced a bottle of Chardonnay on the house, gazing at us with sappy smiles. We billed and cooed like aging lovebirds.

Weeks later I flew back to Reno for his son’s annual mystery party. I sported a feather boa and toted a stuffed wirehaired terrier, and Ken looked dapper in his rented tuxedo, as we impersonated detectives Nick and Nora Charles from the “Thin Man” movies.

I returned for the holidays, suitcase stuffed with Christmas gifts and decorations, and Ken provided a little tree. His son joined us for Christmas dinner and presented us with a mouse pad that featured us in our “Thin Man” costumes.

On New Year’s Eve afternoon Ken taught me some poker basics so that I could accompany him to work that night. Because of the Y2K fright, though, the card room crowd was sparser than anticipated so he got a phone call from the manager offering him the night off. We rushed out to rent videos, grabbed a bottle of champagne and ordered a pizza.

At midnight we toasted the millennium and made a joint resolution to marry. On July 1, 2000, we wed at his son’s home in Reno. Socialnet.com sent us a gift of a Waterford crystal photo frame. It holds a picture of us cutting our cake and sits today on the top shelf of a china cabinet in the living room.

Together Ken and I cruised the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Alaska Inner Passage. We hoisted steins in Munich at Oktoberfest. We searched for Nessie in Inverness, and pub-crawled in Dublin. We gardened, played a running gin game, watched “Jeopardy,” and spoiled our two dogs and three cats. I never quite mastered Texas Hold ‘Em. For nine years Ken e-mailed me those daily jokes. We survived surgeries, spats, falls and fractures. We wandered those art galleries and picnicked on fried chicken, just as I had envisioned. I confess that Ken sauntered, rather than hiked.

After a lingering illness, my sweet Bettor died last spring. But opening his profile proved to be my best bet ever. He indeed turned out to be The One, my sunshine, my love. He’s left me with a myriad of precious memories.

You can bet that I adore technology. Who knew that it would lead me to companionship…and to love?