Our Footprints In The Sand Will Last A Life Time

I am going to take you back in time 35 years of my life and how things worked out in my life and how they could work out the same in years, if you are as lucky as I was and still am.

Thirty five years ago I was as you would call it, a beach bum, living on Long Beach Island in New Jersey during the summers. Had my hair past my shoulders, full beard and driving my 1964 Convertible Corvette. Oh what a life I had partying with the guys and hitting all the clubs and bars on the Island.

I thought I had the best life of all, but I was missing one special thing and that was the love of my life. I thought , man, living down the shore I was sure to find a girl friend somewhere on this Island.

I worked at a fast food and Ice Cream restaurant all through every summer and it gave me the money I needed for gas and for my parting nights out with the guys drinking beer.

One night a few of us hit a bar called Joe Pops where many live bands played and a abundance of girls went to dance the night away. I sat at the bar that evening and a girl across the bar happened to catch my eye like no other one in the bar could.

I had a feeling inside that this girl may have a special meaning to my life. It was a completely different feeling just looking at her and not have even spoke to her yet. I finally got up enough nerve to walk around the other side of the bar and introduce myself to her. We carried on a conversation for awhile and danced a few dances.

We seemed to had got along just find. So at the end of the night and the bar closed I asked if she would like to take a walk up to the Ocean for a little while. We had a great conversation and put our footprints in the sand together as we walked the surf. Then I asked her if she would like to get a bite to eat at the diner which was across the street from the bar. I truly thought inside that our footprints in the sand would last a lifetime. The answer was no, she would have to go home because of how late it was. So she went her way and I went mine. One thing that she mentioned in our conversation is where she lived on Long Beach Island, which was at the opposite end of the Island that I lived.

Her and her family lived in a trailer park in Holgate, the very tip of Long Beach Island. The fellow I was with that night, I explained to him that that girl is something special. I felt something inside of me that told me she would be the one, never knowing five year later she would be my wife.

That night when I went to sleep I saw her in my dreams and when I woke I hopped into my Corvette on a search to find this special girl. I pulled into the trailer park that she told me about and low and behold there she stood in the drive entrance with her mother. I got butterflies in my stomach and just as that happened she saw me and my Corvette and she turned with her mother and ran into their trailer.

I was really heart broken because I knew she saw me pulling into the trailer park, but apparently didn't want to see me ever again. So, for the rest of the day my heart was broken and the girl of my dreams had vanished.

During the next five years I had to calm my life down and had to leave the beach style life I had and get a real job 52 weeks a year. That really though a curve ball into my parting life style, but sooner or later in life, everything must come to an end.

I landed a job in a local Hospital working in Central Supply. I then worked in Physical Therapy as a assistant to the therapist and set up all traction for ER patients and for those that needed traction in their hospital rooms.

Everyday at lunch I would go to the Cafeteria with the nurses and have our lunch. One day I noticed a girl at the counter ordering her food. No minded I only saw this girl from the back and never saw her face in the beginning. I asked one of the nurses I was having lunch with who is that girl at the counter ordering food?

They replied that is Linda, she is new here at the hospital. Nothing rang any bells with the name and when she turned around nothing as of facial looks rang any bell either.

I asked the nurse how about getting me her phone number and maybe you and your boy friend and she and I can go out on a double date.

That evening I gave that girl named Linda a call on the phone and we talked for some time. I convinced her to go out with me on that double date. We spoke of our likes and dislikes and I explained to her that after we are done our double date dinner, all of us could go down on my 41 foot Chris Craft and have a night cap and that's what we did.

We had a wonderful evening and took her back home and asked for a second date and received a big yes on that.

On our second date we went back to my boat and were able to talk freely because we now had no company with us. As we spoke of different things in our lives it seemed that everything we spoke of we had in common, such as both of us loved and lived on Long Beach Island in the summers as teenagers.

As more sentences were spoken things started to really match up, meaning, living on the Island as teenagers and going to Joe Pops Bar for some drinks.

Neither one of us looked the same as 5 years ago, because we both were older and I had to really change my look from a long haired hippie to a well dress, manicured man do to now working in a hospital.

The one thing that stopped both of us in our tracks during this conversation was, that Linda said she met a guy 5 years ago at Joe Pops Bar and he owned a beautiful white convertible Corvette and he lived in Ship Bottom on the Island. She then said she lived in a trailer park in Holgate on the opposite end of the Island and that floored me.

It was her, the girl of my dreams had come back into my life. I said to her, :Oh my God you are the girl I danced with and had taken up to see the Ocean 5 years ago. We where so in shock it was unbelievable.

Can you just imagine how I felt knowing that 5 years ago I thought I had found the girl of my dreams, but she just vanished and never saw her again until now 5 years later.

We contiuned to date and see each other everyday at work and every evening after work till wee hours in the morning. I knew this girl was the girl of my dreams and I needed to ask her and her family for her hand in marriage which I did.

We only dated for 3 months and then we were married and have been married now for 30 years on May 8, 2011.

She slipped away from my life 35 years ago, but I truly believe that God had sent her back to be with me forever and to leave our footprints in the sand for a lifetime.

Now we have just purchased and re-modeled our retirement home 6 minites from the Ocean and beach we both walked on 35 years ago.  Life is so amazing and you can make your life any way you wish.  Always remember dreams do come true and mine certainly did.