nce upon a time....." Well, the story could have started like that, but it didn't. It was a little more mundane than that.

It was September 1954; he was 17 years old and a new student at Schreiner Institute, a private military school on the southern edge of Kerrville, Texas. His new dorm roommate, John Cooke, and he had decided to look around town and see what was what. Having learned that the local teen club was not too far away, they were headed in that direction and since neither of them had a car they were walking. They didn't want to get very far away because to do so would just make for a longer hike back to school. A couple of blocks before they reached the teen club they reached Tivy H.S., the local public high school. Across a side street was the Chat 'N Chew cafe with a car out in front. They could see people inside and since the teen club wouldn't be open for a while yet they decided to go in and get something to drink. What neither John nor he knew was that the cafe wasn't really open. The owners were just using the place for a private birthday party.

Even though they were uninvited guests John and he were invited to stay, a fact that made him glad because he had noticed that there was a nice looking young lady there and she was about the same age as he. Maybe she was a little on the slim side but she was nevertheless quite nice to look at... and she was friendly! Not only that but she had a smile that for him lit up the room and shut out the world.

He doesn't remember whether John and he ever made it to the teen tavern that night but when it came time to head back to the edge of town her parents were nice enough to give them a ride thus saving them a long walk.

Before they said goodbye for the evening he asked the young lady if she planned to attend the mixer at their school the following weekend. She said she was; and she did. He was glad she did because he was just a little shy around girls and this way there was one there he had met before, and besides she was so nice and had a smile that captivated him. Oh, that smile. They hadn't even held hands and he was smitten.

As time passed they began to date on a regular basis. They would go to proms at his school and sock hops at her school. Saturday afternoon would often find them at the movie theater on Water St. in downtown Kerrville. Even though they had been dating for some time they had not even kissed. He wanted to kiss her but thinking that he should be a gentleman he asked for permission to do so, and she, (as it turned out) while wanting to be kissed, thought it only lady like to say, "no." He asked many times and had never even gotten a "good-night" kiss. In the end, at a New Year's dance, at the stroke of midnight, it was another boy who gave her her first real kiss.

Since they went to different high schools there was never a lack of activities to engage in and since his school was an all-boys school and he had an in with a local girl he was often asked to get dates for some of his school mates. They double dated and they triple dated. They would go to Saturday night movies and go to the local drive-in for soft drinks and to see and be seen. Weekend afternoons would often find her house full of boys from his school and girls from her school. The house would be full of chatter and the sound of Elvis, The Platters, Ricky Nelson, et al on the 45-RPM record player. Time always seemed to pass too quickly though and all too soon the boys would have to head back to school where they had a 10PM curfew. Still, times were good. It was the time of poodle skirts, penny loafers, flat-top haircuts, and the words, "a white sports coat and a pink carnation," or "itsy, bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow, polka-dot, bikini," or "one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater," on the car radio. This was the way it was in small town America back then.

As time passed it became to be known to just about everyone that he and she were serious about each other. They weren't "going steady", and never did. Nevertheless they were a pair and everyone knew it. They had been together for a couple of years when he first proposed to her, but she said she should finish high school first and said, "no." Later on, after she had graduated from high school and he was in college (they were still serious about each other) she proposed to him. This time, he said, "no," saying that if they were going to be married he should probably finish college first. All in all they proposed to each other several times but just never got the timing right.

After a couple of years of college he decided the he wasn't sure of the direction in which he was headed and decided to get his military obligation out of the way. He applied to the Air Force to become an Aviation Cadet and after several months delay was notified that he had been accepted. After a year's worth of training he received his wings and his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant. She attended his graduation with his mother and during their time together he once again proposed to her. Once again she declined saying she wanted to finish college first.

After short periods in Central Texas and in Illinois for advanced training he was sent to Eielson AFB, near Fairbanks, Alaska. She, after graduating from college, went to work as a stewardess for a major airline and was based in New England. Time and distance having played their part they both eventually met and married other people.

Jump forward 40 years!

It is now 1993 and he has been divorced for a little over 10 years. He is in his apartment in Houston, Texas, and has gone to sleep on the sofa on a Sunday night while watching TV. The next morning he awakes with a start. In his mind is the rememberace of what he had been dreaming. It is very strong and very vivid except that somehow he knows it wasn't dream exactly. It was she from his high school days all those years ago and she was saying to him, "find me, call me." He passed it off as a dream though but kept remembering it all that day. The next morning exactly the same thing happens, and the next morning, and the next morning, and the next morning. This really has him wondering if something is wrong and she is trying to get in touch with him. Maybe he had better try to find her. Trouble is that he doesn't remember her married name. He knows she lives in another state but can't remember what city. It takes him a month to think of checking with the Alumni office where she went to college. He does and they give him her married name, her address and her current phone number.

He calls and it is she who answers the phone. It's the same voice he knew all those years ago. The emotions and memories come flooding back. The feelings are still there. Because of the repeated dream he had he asks if everything is okay. She says, "yes," and asks why he has asked such a thing. He explains about the dream to which she responds by asking when that was. When he tells her when he had the dream she says that was when she was in Houston for a convention and while she was there she had tried to contact him but couldn't because he had an unlisted phone number. When she couldn't contact him by telephone she said she went back to her hotel room in the evening and while she lay in bed she mentally tried to send a message to him saying, "find me, call me," over and over. The dates of the convention were the same dates he had had the dream. They talked for hours and hours. As it turned out she too was single again, having been divorced several years earlier. They ended the conversation by his saying that maybe someday they could see each other again if she could get to Texas again or that maybe someday his work might require him to visit where she now lived even though it never had before.

The next day around noontime his office contacted him and told him to go home and get some sleep and to be back at work at midnight and be prepared to make a driving trip to West Virginia. Prior to that, his work had never taken him any further east than the Texas-Louisiana border. He was in Little Rock the next morning having breakfast and looking at a road atlas when he realized that to go back to Houston from West Virginia by way of where she lived wouldn't add more than a couple of hundred miles to his return trip. Before he left the restaurant he called her asked if she would allow him to visit for a day or two beginning about 3 days from then. She said she would and he did.

Well, the "day or two" turned into a week.

Since he had some papers that had to get back to Houston he called from just outside of town to tell her that he was going to first stop by the airport and send the papers by airline. She said she would take the rail transit and meet him there. After a couple of wrong turns he finally found the way to the parking deck and went inside to send the paperwork package back to Houston by way of Continental Airlines. As he finished sending the package and turned away from the counter he saw her standing by the main doors. Immediately everyone else in the terminal vanished. Maybe a thousand people were there but he could see only her. And there it was. That smile! That smile that he remembered so well. It was exactly as he remembered it. When she smiled at him the room lit up and the rest of the world just vanished. He could see only her!

During the week they had together she showed him around town. They went out to dinner and they slow danced together in the living room of her townhouse. Perhaps best of all was remembering and discussing old times, old places and old friends. Of equal importance was their talking of the possibility of getting back together. By the time he had to leave to go back to Houston that question had not been resolved. He thought about it continuously on the way back to Texas. It was precisely midnight when he hit the Houston city limits and it was also at that moment that he prayed and asked for some sign to let him know whether leaving Texas and moving to be where she was was something he should do. He also prayed that if he was given a sign that it be a real "doosey", admitting that he was sometimes kind of dense and tended to miss things that were right in front of him.

The next day when he returned to work the first person to welcome him back asked him how his visit had been. Apparently his meeting his old flame had been a hot topic while he was gone. He replied saying that it had gone well enough that if he knew he could get a job over there and if he just had a little more money in his savings he would be gone tomorrow. The response was, "oh, that's right, you've been gone. While you were gone it was announced that our company is opening an office over there."

When he got back to his apartment that evening there was a call from his step-brother on his answering machine. Seems that 3 different investment groups had approached him asking if they would be willing to sell some jointly owned property they had been trying to sell for years. That would certainly add to his savings account.

At that moment..... it hit him! Slam! He had asked for a sign and here it was... or rather here they were. Even as dense as he was he couldn't ignore the fact that his prayer had been answered. About a month later he moved to be with her. Shortly thereafter he once again proposed to her. This time she accepted.

On June 24, 1994, forty-one years after he first proposed to her, he married his high school sweetheart.

Well, dear reader, how did you like our little story?

It is a true story!

How do we know?

Well, we know because the "she" in this story is Donna Baker, the artist whose artworks are displayed on this web site and the "he" in this story is me, George Baker, her husband and the Webmaster and creator of this web site.

P.S. Her hair is flecked with grey now and mine is decidedly grey, and we are somewhat rounder than we were (not too much), but when I look at her I still see that high school girl from all those years ago. And that smile! Oh that smile! It still lights up the world for me.