If My Heart Had Wings: A World War II Love Story(5)

It was one of the corny things she liked to say when she thought I was silly and yet lovable. I think that’s what it meant, anyway.

Mom settled into a chair, pinned a few skirt sections together, and tossed the pinned-up garment over to me.

“Here. Make yourself useful and baste these seams together.”

Then she turned her attention to basting the sleeves into the armholes—a much more intricate task than the one she’d just assigned to me.

“Okay,” she said resignedly. “What do you want to know?”

Ha! I won.

“Well, how did you meet him?”

“At camp. Church camp.”

“Camp ? How old was he, anyway?”

“Twenty-one.”

Twenty-one! In my book camp was for kids or young teenagers, not people who were old enough to drink.

“Bizarre . How old were you ?”

“Almost eighteen. It wasn’t like the camp you’ve gone to. It was a camp for college kids and young adults. My mother signed me up because we’d just moved to St. Paul, and she thought it would be a good way for me to meet people.”

She continued with her stitching.

“Okay, so then what happened? No, wait, let me guess.”

I mustered my most romantic voice and cooed, “There you were, sitting around the campfire, when suddenly your eyes met, and you realized that this was the one you’d been waiting for...”

I looked over to see how that was sitting with her and got her “c’mon now, get serious” look for all my efforts.

“Well, was that what it was like?” I asked hopefully.

“No,” she said flatly. “Actually, I was smacking some balls around on the tennis court with another girl when these two guys came by and started cheering us on. And pretty soon, we got so self-conscious that we just gave up and started talking to them. One of them was really handsome. And that was Lyndon.”

She indicated the sewing that was lying unattended in my lap.

“Hey, how’s that basting coming along?”

I made a big show of knotting my thread and taking a tentative stitch or two. I hated basting.

“So, what did you say to him?” I asked. I was desperate to find out what to say to make some cute guy like me.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said irritably. “Who can remember? We’re talking thirty years ago.”

I waited to see if she would go on. She did.

“I’m sure it came up that I was new in town and about to start Hamline in the fall. And he probably said he lived right across the street from there, which he did. And I probably told him I lived in the same general area. And then I left.”

“You left?”

“Yes.”

“But I thought you liked him!”

“I did like him, but I didn’t want him to think I was too eager. So, I just smiled, picked up my tennis racket, said, ‘See you around,’ and went back to my cabin.”

I didn’t get it. Why would she walk away from a cute guy who wanted to talk to her?

“You’ve got to give these guys enough rope to hang themselves,” she explained in a confidential tone. “They don’t like it if you’re too interested.”

Oh.

“Anyway,” she said, “enough of that. Finish that basting, and then you can clean up this room while I get dinner together.”

And that was it. Discussion ended.

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I NEVER DID FIND OUT the details of how the two of them connected, other than the tennis game. But I’d gone to camp myself, so I had some idea of how it might have happened. I could picture them taking a nature hike and getting so wrapped up in talking to each other that they didn’t see a thing. I could see them splashing each other during canoe races and laughing their heads off, holding on to each other’s waists and falling down during three-legged races, sitting a little too close while they toasted marshmallows-on-a-stick, and doing all the other corny, ridiculously fun things that campers do.

Then somehow, somewhere, while they were gliding across a lake, or singing in front of a campfire, or just sitting on a tree stump talking about what they wanted to do in the fall, a spark was struck. And that spark became a flame.



Mom, about the time she met Lyndon

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I REMEMBER THE SUMMER of 1968 as being an incredibly long and tedious one. At fifteen, I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, and neither did any of my friends, so tooling around the town was out. I was too young to work and had recently given up my ballet lessons, which left just one activity to occupy my time: six weeks of summer school, during which I took World History and Design Craft—whoopee. I spent the rest of my time reading my boring history book, helping Mom make my fall wardrobe, and pumping her for romantic stories about Lyndon.

I tried to get her going again just a few days after she told me about meeting Lyndon on the tennis court. We were on our hands and knees on the living room floor, where she was showing me how to cut out my next dress.

“First of all,” she instructed solemnly, “Don’t ever buy the amount of yardage listed on the pattern; it’s a waste of money. You can always get it out in less. Look at this! Even though the pattern calls for two yards, I bought a yard and a half, and I’ll still get it out.”