How it all started.....

I have some wonderful friends that knew Bill a lot better than I did. In fact, I didn't know him at all! Even though we had been in the same ward together, we had never really had a conversation. Well there was one in the parking lot of Smith's Food King. That would be the one about Heidi-dog. We had a little Schnauzer that liked to chase motor cycles. She would run into the street and get right under their wheels. It was always very annoying to the drivers. One day Jeff was racing down our street about 100 mph in Bill's beloved Shelby. The car was so noisy that Heidi thought it was a motor cycle and ran out to "get it". Jeff skidded to a stop and saved her and was so concerned. Anyway, as I remember it, that was the one and only time I ever talked to Bill. We laughed about Jeff and Heidi. That is until our first date. My friends, Marsha and David Derrick and Greg and Jolyn Bell, all knew him well and really liked him. I remember one conversation with Marsha went something like this.

Marsha: "Mary Kay, David has worked with him in Scouts and thinks he is such
a great guy."
MK: "Isn't he broke?"
Marsha: "Oh yes, but he will do OK. He is a great business man."
MK: "Does he have a job?"
Marsha: "Well, no, but that won't last long. He always has something going on."
MK: "But he has no debt, right?"
Marsha: "Well he didn't come out that well."
MK: "Well this doesn't sound so great to me."
Marsha: "But David says he is such a good man."
Mary Kay: "But he is older than I am by more than ten years."
Marsha: "Yes, but he is in such good shape, except for the diabetes."
Mary Kay: "He has diabetes?"
Marsha: "Yes, but he takes really good care of himself."
Mary Kay: "NO WAY."
I can't swear to the details of the "Jeff story" or the conversation with Marsha, but believe me they are close enough! Marsha wanted me to chase him. Well there was no way that was going to happen. She kept threatening to take him cookies and put my name on them. At any rate, they did get me to thinking about him. Greg had been our Bishop, and he thought the world of Bill. So on a beautiful Saturday in March when he called me, I said "yes". He wanted to know if I would "like to take a walk", and I thought that sounded like a great idea. He wanted me to walk down to Irene's basement where he was living and pick HIM up. He said that we would take a walk on Lagoon Lane and then he would walk me back up to my house. He had it all figured out. As I was walking down to get him, I thought to myself that it seemed like I was chasing him. Well we walked and talked and it was WONDERFUL. We sure did get a few looks, but we didn't care. He walked me home, and THAT was how it all started.