This is a story I received from Charles French in response to the storytelling challenge I issued a few weeks back. Not only is Chuck an awesome writer and human, he has also been my academic adviser/mentor/primary English professor for almost four years now and I owe so much of what I know now to him. He’s even the one who helped me start this blog! So I hope all of you enjoy this story as much as I did and please check out his blog https://charlesfrenchonwordsreadingandwriting.wordpress.com/ because he posts some really great content!

How My Parents Met

The year was, I believe 1943, and America was in the middle of World War Two. My mother had gone to work in the big city of Philadelphia, PA. She had grown up in the small town of Easton, PA, and had lived a fairly sheltered life. I remember her saying until she was on her own and living in Philadelphia that she was a very shy person. Now, that is unlike the woman I remember who would speak happily to any other human being who might be in earshot of her.
She had moved to the city to work in the Army Signal Corps as a typist, and she was, as she said many times, a fervent patriot. My mother was eating lunch at a diner one afternoon when a young man came in and sat next to her at an open seat at the counter. He was wearing normal clothes, so my mom launched into a little speech to him: “Why aren’t you serving in the military? All the young men I know are, and you look healthy enough.”

Well with that, he rose and walked away. She said she felt a little bad that she had been rude to him. About ten minutes later he returned. She hadn’t noticed that he was carrying a large travel bag, and he was now wearing his Marine Corps dress uniform!
She said at first she was very embarrassed, but then they laughed about it, and their romance had begun.

Charles French