Marriage; falling in love or arranged?

It seems my eldest son Ted and his new bride Deanne fell in love. Perhaps it wasn’t love at first sight since they had been in the same classrooms in our small towns elementary school since kindergarten. Then they went to high school together dated their senior year and that was it. Going off to college some distance apart in other states they remained steadfast and married after graduation. Their marriage however lasted only a few years but Deanne assures me that Ted is waiting for her in heaven where she knows she will meet him again there someday.

For Mrs. T. Now in memory care she expects much the same,, that is as long as I keep my nose clean and attend church regularly. Our beginnings though were much different. We had an old-fashioned arranged marriage. Actually, Barb arranged it. Back in the day she was teaching in a small town high school and according to Barb her single girlfriends forced her into approaching the superintendent of schools and telling him to be sure to hire an eligible single male social studies teacher. Of course not so side nor timid Barb took on the job. The man I replaced had moved on to teach social studies in Rochester Minnesota I was his replacement. You might say I was requisitioned. When she tells that two people in more recent times I say it’s probably true though she no doubt in her story left out the most important word in her requisition “that was the word” “handsome”. :-) She continued on making arrangements by on the second week in my first ever high school job. She approached my classroom with a rather sorrowful expression. It seems that on the first floor, I was on the second floor the social studies Junior high teacher was a jerk because she needed the filmstrip projector and he wouldn’t loan her his. That I have one that she could borrow me being a fellow social studies teacher. What could I do but loan her mind. After all she was a damsel in distress. Well I don’t recall if I ever got it back but I doubt it and in any case about a year later we were married. It was arranged and perhaps inevitable it seems we had both grown up in St. Paul Minnesota and had a lot in common. So the question comes up which is perhaps the best way to enter in to marriage. Arranged or to fall in love? Barb and my circumstances where the latter. She wanted a husband. And I was ready to settle down. It’s probably fair to say even on the day we were married we weren’t madly in love. My best analogy on that subject is found in the song and the movie fiddler on the roof. That was an arranged marriage if I remember right they were Jewish. Arranged marriage does in Europe were quite common among the royalty princesses marriage to princes were a matter of politics and power for the ruling families. They could fall in love but often the future Kings made either other arrangements such as divorces and or affairs. I can’t remember the couple’s names in the fiddler story, perhaps he was to Teveyhe but in any case the couple grew into a profound and lasting marriage based on love. When I go to Cottagewood she lights up when she sees me and gives me hugs and kisses and speaks of our love I do the same. When it’s time for me to go home she hangs on for dear life and begs me to take her home me. The aides and nurses then begin a diversion and I have to sneak out each and every time. Surely however love begins or grows it is the only thing that really counts in the end. Troutbirder a. K. A. Ray