I had been dating a German woman, Tanja, for 3 years. We had a dysfunctional relationship, but there were times when she was a lot of fun. She liked to explore new things and places and was in general of good spirit. I know she had a good heart usually, but she frequently had the nasty need to push my buttons to get me upset. I believe she would do this because she felt that if I would stay with her after getting me ragingly mad, that it meant that I cared for her. If there is another explanation I don't know what it would be.
Tanja had relatives that lived in Delton on a 150 acre parcel. Tanja put together a party there and invited a couple of dozen guests. My future wife was one of them, and we chatted only but a few words the entire night.
Months later, Tanja wanted to go play pool with her friend Mohammad. He wanted to bring his sister, so we met them at the bar. Other than saying "Hello" when we arrived, I didn't speak at all to his sister. But I carried on a conversation with Mohammad.
We went out with them again several months later. This time, while Mohammad and Tanja were chatting, his sister and I were talking away. For a few hours that evening we chatted. At that point I still emotionally belonged to Tanja, so nothing was going to develop from this. But this is where I first socially met my future wife.
I didn't see Mohammad's sister again for about 4 months. During that time I was planning a tour for Tanja's parents. She wanted to show them as much of the US in 2 weeks as was possible. So I sat on the computer and to the best of my abilities, I scheduled a 5,000 mile trip. Every day we had hotels booked at various locations from Michigan, to New York, Washington D.C., Georgia, Florida, Key West, Orlando, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, and back to Michigan. We visited other places, but this gives an idea of the intensity.
So at just over 3 years into our relationship, Tanja and I took a 2 week trip with her parents. Each day we drove about 8 hours. Well, this trip put a strain on our already fragile relationship. About 3 weeks after returning from the trip I realized that I was the unhappiest I had ever been. So on Wednesday, August 23, 1993, I broke up with Tanja.
Now, I was very involved in Tanja's life. I had told her that I would take care of numerous projects. I had wanted to remain friends with her because she did have qualities about her personality that I did enjoy, but that was going to prove to be beyond my comfort level. But I began taking care of the different loose ends I had with her.
It was 3 days after I broke up with Tanja, Saturday. One of those items was writing a letter for her friend Mohammad. So I composed a letter with the limited information available to me. I then called the only number I had for him so that I could drop off the letter. Apparently, his sister was living with her twin brother Ali, and Mohammad was in Germany at that time.
At this particular moment in my life, I was NOT looking to start a new relationship; I was struggling to get out of the one I was currently in. So when Mohammad's sister answered the phone I was simply thinking "Can I quickly drop this letter off to you, so I can mark one more thing off my list of things to do?" So Mohammad's sister invited me over, but she was in a hurry and would only be there for 10 minutes or so. So I drove over, knocked on the door, said Hi and handed her the letter. I was ready to turn around and leave. But somehow, a conversation started regarding the content of the letter and we stood there in the hallway of her apartment talking for about 15 minutes. During that 15 minutes I became interested in her.
She had errands to run, so she was wanting to get out the door. I found that she was interesting and I wanted to get to know her. So I invited myself along by asking if she would mind having my company.
She was getting ready to move to San Francisco, so she went to a news stand to pick up the San Francisco Chronicle to find an apartment. We browsed for a while, chatted, and then as we were leaving (I didn't want our time together to end), I asked her if she liked coffee.
After she affirmed, I gave her directions to "The Coffee Joint", an art-deco coffee shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We ended up sitting there for 5 hours talking (I don't drink coffee, yuck). 6 pm rolls around and I still didn't want our date to end, so I asked and we went to see a movie a short time later, "True Lies". I enjoyed the movie and it gave me a little time to think about my own feelings. I began to worry about rebound since I just broke up with my girlfriend of over 3 years. When the movie finished, I was still wanting to spend more time with the woman who now had my full attention.
South Haven, Michigan is on the East shore of Lake Michigan and is about a 45 minute drive from Kalamazoo. It was 8:30 pm and the sun set at that time around 9:30 pm. So I asked my girlfriend if she would like to drive out to South Haven to watch the Sun set. Somewhere along the way we changed cars and I took my little Fiero.
I'm not that chatty of a person, but we never ran out of things to talk about; there was a natural comfort. We arrived and discovered a pier that stretched out into the lake about a 1/4 of a mile. We walked, and sat, talked and joked, watched the Sun set and the moon come up. We left around 11 pm and I drove her back to her brother's place.
The next day, she invited me to one of her friends birthday party. But in the morning she was unavailable because one of her instructors was to take her flying in his airplane. So we met up again during Sunday afternoon. The party was casual and fun. I met her boyfriend, little Mikey. A three year old boy who gave my wonderful friend a lot of attention. She liked being around kids.
The next day, Monday, I called after getting off of work. My girlfriend was a little concerned because things were going too fast. She wanted to slow down and not see me for a couple of days. So I agreed. We ended up talking on the phone for hours.
Then on Tuesday, I called again, and we talked for about 8 hours with my new girlfriend.
We got together on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Saturday, we had been walking around the downtown mall. And it felt right for me, it had for several days. So on Saturday, August 27, 1994 on a Mall bench, late at night, at the Kalamazoo Center. I sat on my legs before her while she sat on the bench, I leaned up to her, and I asked her to marry me...
There was a moments pause, a flaccid face, and a smile slowly appeared and she answered Yes. We spent the next two weeks together in Kalamazoo. I introduced her to my friends, and from that moment I began developing an internal perspective of myself as her husband.
Two weeks later, I helped her move to San Francisco, California. She was starting another segment of her education there. We took her car and drove through Chicago, with breakfast at our favorite French restaurant. Up through Wisconsin where we stopped for lunch and relaxed out in the field of a school. On out across Wyoming where we spent the night in a Honeymoon Suite (oddly, the only room they had available). Then visited the Badlands and spent the following night in the Managers Suite of a hotel (the only room they had available). Drove through and visited Yellowstone National Park. Stayed a day in Las Vegas. And arrived in San Francisco where we stayed for about a week together.
On Tuesday, September 13, 1993 we drove to Sausalito, California which is North of San Francisco on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were shopping for engagement rings. We purchased our gold rings with grape vines surrounding them. The meaning "The beginning of life".
I came back to Michigan and started selling everything I owned and in 9 months I was ready to move out to be with my fiancee. I also incorporated myself and started an Electronic Service company called Tron Router, Inc.
We wanted to buy a house, but it was $250,000 to live in the ghetto of San Francisco. So we checked out other possibilities and ended up buying a sailboat. I drove to Florida and bought a 45 foot Irwin sailboat(I saw a lot of boats). My fiancee flew in June 1, 1994 and for the first day there was some distance between us because of how long we had been apart. We cruised around Florida on the sailboat for 2 months, in close quarters, with never a cross word between us. Actually, I enjoyed being in constant contact with her.
During one episode out at sea we were in a storm with 8 foot waves washing over the boat, moderate seas. The edge of the sailboat was only 4 feet off the water so care needed to be taken to keep the waves from washing us out of the boat. After 6 hours I became sea sick, but my wife did not. Through even life threatening circumstances we were a complementary pair.
After weeks of travel thereafter, we then hired a boat hauler to move Bare Joy II to San Francisco. We rented dock space in South San Francisco for 3 1/2 years. I really enjoyed living on the sailboat. I repaired commercial laundry equipment part time, and also was a commercial SCUBA diver doing hull maintenance. This is how I paid for some expenses while I was attending San Francisco State University (SFSU). I began going to school full time in Electrical Engineering.
After 3 1/2 years my wife graduated and got a residency in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So off she went while I stayed and finished up my term of school. I then cleaned up Bare Joy and got her set up for storage.
I moved to Albuquerque in January of 1998 and started taking classes at the University of New Mexico in Electrical Engineering. That Fall, I started working for NASA in a program called PURSUE. My first project was designing a couple of small robots for collaborative robotics research. My last projects were developing an Electronics Technology laboratory.
We sold Bare Joy II because we are about as far from water as you can imagine.
I did internships with the Air Force Office of Scientific Investigation, Philips Semiconductors, and Honeywell Defense Avionics Systems.
I graduated in December of 2000 with my BS in EE. I've worked for Honeywell as a Hardware Designer.
* to be Continued
