How I Met Teacher Man

My mother gave me many good pieces of advice as I was growing up. I’d like to think I followed her direction on most occasions; that her insight has, in part, gotten me where I am today.

There is one piece of advice, however, that I didn’t follow and it was a biggie.

One summer when I was home from college, she told me, “Lara, you’ll never find a husband in Hector.”

Now full disclosure, this statement may have come about because I was going out too much and probably having way too much fun, as 20-year-olds tend to do. I am quite sure I was testing my boundaries – the ones between obeying the rules of my parents’ home and trying so desperately to be what I thought was an independent adult.

But nevertheless, I sure wasn’t going to find myself a husband in Hector.

Only I did – just not in the way I would’ve expected.

Fast forward several years later, when my sister was in high school and a new teacher came to town. I was working as editor of a newspaper a couple of hours away near the Twin Cities, but I would go home to visit quite often. My sister started talking about her social studies teacher – specifically about how I should meet him because I just might like him. Or so she thought.

I scoffed, of course. What would my 16-year-old sister know about such things? When I asked her what he looked like, she replied without skipping a beat, “He’s very well groomed.”

“You mean like a dog?” I asked incredulously.

Of course God has a funny way of directing our paths sometimes, and I couldn’t help but be a little curious about this Teacher Man. Let’s just say, I scoped him out at the hometown basketball game one Friday night – he was the junior varsity boys coach at the time – and decided he might be pretty cute. We didn’t meet that night, though, as his team lost the game and it didn’t seem like the right place or time.

Not too long after that, my sister gave him my phone number (she didn’t tell me until afterwards!) and he actually called. We met on a “sort of blind date” – I say sort of, because we had never spoken except on the phone, but I knew what he looked like – and he had seen my senior picture up on the high school and still wanted to meet me. (My 80s hair was a distant memory, thank goodness.)  

And so here we are, 20 years later (16 of them as husband and wife) and I can still say my sister was right all along – Teacher Man is very well groomed! (Which turns out, is a good thing, not only for personal hygienics but also for clean houses, too. A husband who cleans? Yes!) He is a lot of many other wonderful things, as well.

I have a feeling my Mom doesn’t mind, at least this once, that I decided not to follow her advice. 😉

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

Lara