{"id":8688,"date":"2024-12-14T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8688"},"modified":"2025-04-10T14:37:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T14:37:44","slug":"my-wife-and-i-a-fragrant-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/my-wife-and-i-a-fragrant-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"My Wife and I: A Fragrant Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Google<\/a>
Moorhead State’s gate, a few blocks from where I grew up. (October 2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My wife and I met while we were Computer Science students at MSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t remember if MSU was Minnesota State University Moorhead by that time, or Moorhead State University. Either way, it was Moorhead State to me: the place where my dad worked, a block or so from my home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife earned a Computer Science degree, I nearly learned calculus a few times. The first time we talked was in the hallway near the Computer Science department’s entrance: a square arch leading to another hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone \u2014 students, I figure \u2014 had put a banner of continuous-feed paper over the arch. It bore a motto: “ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO PROGRAM”. Having written a few programs in the two years I lasted there, I appreciated the sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were both in a circle of friends we called ‘the computer gang’, who were also enthusiastic RPG players.1<\/a><\/sup> A bit overly-enthusiastic, and that’s another topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>A Movie and Pizza, Coffee and Conversation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After seeing “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, we went to a pizza place \u2014 Godfather’s Pizza, I think, but don’t quote me on that \u2014 on Moorhead’s south side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember that my wife-to-be was sitting by the window, facing north, and that I sat in the chair next to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I don’t remember is practically climbing over an unspecified number of my friends to reach that chair. But that’s what I did, they told me, and I believe them. I really wanted to sit next to her. That, I do<\/strong> remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, pizza and conversation followed. Both eventually ebbed. By that time, I’d noticed that this young woman had not thoroughly enjoyed the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I’m not one of those perceptive, astute, and insightful guys; just simply brimming with sensitivity to the inner feelings of others. I can generally tell if the other person is about to go off the deep end, but that’s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I’d been rather tightly focused on this young woman for maybe an hour or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I’m not all that sensitive to emotional cues. But noticing words, their context, and their plethora of meanings \u2014 connotative, denotative, and allusional? That, I am<\/strong> good at. Freakishly so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This young woman was, I thought, if not in actual need<\/strong> of more time to get over that movie’s intense imagery, was at least in a position to benefit from opportunities to focus on something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, I saw in the then-present circumstance an opportunity to enjoy a bit more of her company and conversation. Selfish? Oh, yes. Altruistic? Maybe that, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I asked if she’d be okay with getting a cup of coffee at another place \u2014 a Village Inn, across the street back then.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Reasonable Questions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I could describe the place, and the booth we sat in, but that part of Moorhead has changed over the decades. There’s a Snap Dragon Asian Buffet there now.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s important, to me, is that we kept talking. A lot. About the movie, at first, but then she asked “how many children do you want?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many guys might have run, screaming, into the night at that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t remember my exact words, but they were something very close to ‘four or five, I suppose, or whatever happens’. My tone was, assuming my memory’s accurate, calm and conversational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My interior response was, if it had been expressed in words, something like ‘Schnortt! Dat’s my kinda woman!!’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve discussed the questions she asked. She had a quite reasonable explanation for raising those issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’d been very serious about another member of ‘the computer gang’, had gone through a Catholic pre-marriage course, and remembered the topics raised. To her, they were logical queries which seemed appropriate, given my apparent interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which, of course, they were. My wife is eminently logical and practical. Me? I’m part-Irish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More conversations, and movies, followed. Time passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at last we reached one of those romantic milestones: our first kiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first, I’d better explain something. I have no sense of smell.4<\/a><\/sup> I can detect things like ammonia, but it’s not so much smelling the stuff as feeling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, back to that romantic milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a lovely summer night, on Moorhead’s north side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were walking under the stars, speaking of this and that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked my wife if it was okay to write about the experience, she agreed; and, looking back on that memorable moment, added \u2014 “you took me past the sewage plant”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She married me, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More memories, recent and otherwise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n