My first wife, Ethel, and I had an agreement that we had made years ago. When one of us would pass away the other should remarry.

About a year after Ethel did pass away I was on an Elder hostel program at the Grand Canyon. I met this woman who would fit my criteria for a second wife. Trouble was, she was happily married to a very nice fellow. I told him that they had successfully cloned a sheep and when they could clone a human being would he loan me his wife for however long it took to clone her double.

I went to different churches. I had heard that was a good place to meet a widow. The right one never showed up. I went on a number of cruises. Still, the right lady never showed up.

Quite a lot of this time I was in our writing class. There was this red haired young lady in the class to whom I was attracted. She was so much younger than I was that it didn’t even occur to me to ask her for a date.

Then in February of 1999 Fay had a birthday and brought a birthday cake to class. She said it was the big zero birthday. My friend Willis and I figured it had to be 70 as she couldn’t have been in the writing class if she had been less than sixty years of age before that date.

I now knew that she was only about 12 years younger than I was. With that knowledge I screwed up my nerve to ask Fay if I could take her out to dinner. I half way expected her to tell me to get lost you dirty old man. She surprised me by saying, “That would be nice.”

After a number of dinners out I introduced her to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They were as charmed by Fay as I was.

I figured a way I could remake my work shop to incorporate an office and storage. This would allow Fay to have my office her computer.

Now that I had this figured out I asked Fay if she would marry me. As an added incentive I told her I was going on a Panama Canal cruise that would make an ideal honeymoon. Fay said yes and the rest is history. We’ve been married about three and a half months and she doesn’t hate me yet.

As to the Panama Canal cruise, that’s a different story all of its own.