Spring in Mama's senior year brought the terribly exciting news that Sherry'd earned a scholarship to go to college.
Mama had made it.
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| Getting ready for the Big Day |
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| Taking pictures in all the adventure spots at the farm. |
Looking at old pictures,
imagining the future.
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| Sherry Candy Lane (above) & Johnny Ross Candy (lower right) |
Then the Big Day came and Sherry "walked" and received her diploma! Grandma Pearl and Jess were right there with her every step of the way.
Mama's e-Quilt was still in the future but it was taking shape even way back then.
The summer after graduation from high school, Mama used all the money she'd been saving for years and years and bought herself a car.
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| Grandma Pearl in the Goose |
Mama earned a scholarship to go to Northwood College but she had to work in the cafeteria to afford housing.
Daddy overheard Mama in the Student Lounge saying how she had to get up at dawn to get breakfast ready for the campus but she didn't have an alarm clock.
When Mama was back in her room that night there came a knock on the door.
"IT WAS DADDY!"
"He brought her an alarm clock."
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After that first night when Daddy gave Mama the alarm clock so she could work in the cafeteria so she could stay on campus, they became friends. Only when Mama explains friends she still gets fluttery.
She couldn't ever remember his number in the cafeteria lines.
She got so sweaty when they went bowling she had to borrow a trench coat so he wouldn't see her nervous.
She had to steady her root beer on the car window ledge when they'd go to A&W.
And there was the longest ever in the whole world summer between first and second year at College. Mama thought for sure Ed was going to propose before he drove his sportscar all the way back to New York. So when she saw the envelope with a long lumpy thing in it, she did a double take.
It was a pen!
And the whole summer Mama and Daddy wrote love letters and cards per day. The stack wrapped in satin ribbons to this day is like a calendar.
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Come the next fall Mama and Daddy headed off to college again. Daddy drove out to Midland from New York in a different sportscar. And Mama had spent the summer sewing outfits.
She wanted to be sure of Daddy. So she made a splash in the dorms by putting on an evening gown and going to a Prom with a friend.
In his white sweater and his jeans, Mama remembers. He gave me a paper rose, Mama gets all teary-eyed.
After that Mama and Daddy were inseparable.
Sherry went to work as a secretary at Ferries and Maxwell. And Daddy stayed in college so he could get his business degree.
They went to New York together so Sherry could meet Nana and PopPop (Ed's parents).
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| Beth and John Lane |
And they talked about getting married.
Daddy took Mama to the Catholic Church in Midland every Sunday and Sherry decided she liked the Catholic Church better than any church she'd been to so she started doing Catechism--studying the Bible and all of the things that make a Catholic Church, Catholic.
Daddy and Mama worked at selling phone books together. And Daddy and Mama worked at a department store. And Mama helped Daddy stay focused on his studies even while the baby (that'd be me, Lara) was fussing and spitting up spinach.
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| At Rodd Street apartment after Sherry and Ed got married. |
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| Ed and Lara |
It wasn't until after Daddy's college graduation that we moved to New York. Sherry, Ed, Lara and SCRUFFY!
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| Lara and Sherry |
