One of my favorite posts...
http://www.geocities.ws/kozulich/heaven.html
Friday, September 26, 2014
An Arranged Marriage
My name is Niels Andersen. Actually, Niels Ejvind Nygård Andersen. My first name is Niels Ejvind. I was born in Denmark and immigrated to Chatham, Ontario, Canada with my parents and brothers when I was ten years old. Didn't know a word of English.
I started high school in 1961. Across from my newly-assigned hallway locker was a locker belonging to a girl I had never seen before. I soon discovered her name was Sheila. She stole my heart with her eyes and her smile.
However, I was an extremely shy boy. I had taken waltz lessons before I left Denmark, but I remember how extremely uncomfortable I was around the girls in my dance class. What were my parents thinking? My shyness had not changed by Grade 9. My siblings were all boys, and the only girl in my immediate family was my mother. As much as I wanted to ask Sheila on a date, I didn't have the courage.
I had a strong interest in aviation, and so I enrolled in the local Royal Canadian Air Cadets squadron, 294 Chatham. There I became close friends with another boy who was a year younger than me. We would often go for walks or bicycle rides together after school and on weekends, discussing things such as the difference in water pressure between the water at the top of the local water tower and the water at the base of the tower. My friend claimed it depended on the diameter of the pipe, and I maintained that it depended only on the height of the tower. This would not be the only debate that I won.
Air Cadets squadrons have an annual inspection, and my uniform had to be clean and ironed, and my black shoes shined. My friend always had very, very shiny shoes. In advance of one of our annual inspections, he offered to loan me his shoe shine kit. He told me he would not be home the afternoon we arranged for me to pick up his shoe shine kit, but there would be someone home who would be able to get the kit for me, he explained. We had been to each others' homes several times, so I knew where he lived.
And so I found myself knocking on his front door. When Sheila opened the door, you could have blown me over with a feather. I did not know he had a sister, much less did I know she was my friend's sister. As it turns out, she is his only sister. We sat on a picnic table in their backyard and talked and talked. That was the first time I spoke at length with my future bride. That was the first co-incidence, and by far the largest co-incidence I had ever encountered. When I look back, I can recognize it as a miracle that it was.
You would think that our unplanned meeting that afternoon would be sufficient for me to overcome my shyness, and that I would ask her out on a date. But no, it would take more than one miracle.
When I was 18, I enrolled in the squadron's Air Cadet Flying Scholarship program. There were three of us in the class, including my best friend. There were two scholarships available, and I was bound and determined to earn one of them. One of the three of us lost out, and it was my close friend.
So the summer before I started Grade 13 I was sent to the London Flying Club in London, Ontario, and for four weeks I took flying lessons. Three and half weeks after I started I had earned my wings, and I came back home with a Private Pilot License.
After Grade 12, Sheila and I went to separate high schools for Grade 13. And that might have been the end of any possibility of a relationship with each other.
However, then we had our Grade 12 graduation ceremony back at our old high school. That was on Saturday, December 4, 1965, my parents' 20th wedding anniversary. After the graduation ceremony, my friend invited me to go with him to the graduation dance, without telling me he would be with his girlfriend and his sister Sheila. A second miracle.
Soon he asked his girlfriend to dance. That left me sitting with Sheila on a bench along one wall of the auditorium. I really had no choice but to ask her to dance. The only dance routine I knew was the high school shuffle, but it was wonderful holding this sweet girl in my arms for the first time.
Over the summer I had been checked out on a 4-seat Cessna 172 at Wallaceburg Airport. Then, just two weeks after our Grade 12 graduation, on Sunday, December 19, I booked a brand new Cessna 172, worth $250,000 in today's economy. I wouldn't be old enough to rent a car for another 6 years. After I had arranged for the airplane, I drove over to Sheila's church and waited for her to leave the morning service. When she came out, I asked her for a date, to go flying with me, just the two of us. I had finally overcome my shyness with this special girl. And so she found herself airborne at 5000 feet on a cold December day with a boy she hardly knew. She was 17, I was 19. She has teased me several times since then that she wanted me to kiss her, and my response is "I don't kiss on a first date." That wasn't actually true. I was so busy flying that I probably never though of it.
Sheila is the only girl I have ever dated. Five and a half years after that first date, on Friday, July 2, 1971, and almost 10 years since I first set eyes on her, we married at the Huron Church Chapel on the grounds of the University of Western Ontario.
As I mentioned, looking back, I can recognize my first face-to-face meeting with Sheila as a miracle. And I have come to realize that our marriage is an arranged marriage, arranged by our Lord and God.
In His Grip,
Niels
I started high school in 1961. Across from my newly-assigned hallway locker was a locker belonging to a girl I had never seen before. I soon discovered her name was Sheila. She stole my heart with her eyes and her smile.
However, I was an extremely shy boy. I had taken waltz lessons before I left Denmark, but I remember how extremely uncomfortable I was around the girls in my dance class. What were my parents thinking? My shyness had not changed by Grade 9. My siblings were all boys, and the only girl in my immediate family was my mother. As much as I wanted to ask Sheila on a date, I didn't have the courage.
I had a strong interest in aviation, and so I enrolled in the local Royal Canadian Air Cadets squadron, 294 Chatham. There I became close friends with another boy who was a year younger than me. We would often go for walks or bicycle rides together after school and on weekends, discussing things such as the difference in water pressure between the water at the top of the local water tower and the water at the base of the tower. My friend claimed it depended on the diameter of the pipe, and I maintained that it depended only on the height of the tower. This would not be the only debate that I won.
Air Cadets squadrons have an annual inspection, and my uniform had to be clean and ironed, and my black shoes shined. My friend always had very, very shiny shoes. In advance of one of our annual inspections, he offered to loan me his shoe shine kit. He told me he would not be home the afternoon we arranged for me to pick up his shoe shine kit, but there would be someone home who would be able to get the kit for me, he explained. We had been to each others' homes several times, so I knew where he lived.
And so I found myself knocking on his front door. When Sheila opened the door, you could have blown me over with a feather. I did not know he had a sister, much less did I know she was my friend's sister. As it turns out, she is his only sister. We sat on a picnic table in their backyard and talked and talked. That was the first time I spoke at length with my future bride. That was the first co-incidence, and by far the largest co-incidence I had ever encountered. When I look back, I can recognize it as a miracle that it was.
You would think that our unplanned meeting that afternoon would be sufficient for me to overcome my shyness, and that I would ask her out on a date. But no, it would take more than one miracle.
When I was 18, I enrolled in the squadron's Air Cadet Flying Scholarship program. There were three of us in the class, including my best friend. There were two scholarships available, and I was bound and determined to earn one of them. One of the three of us lost out, and it was my close friend.
So the summer before I started Grade 13 I was sent to the London Flying Club in London, Ontario, and for four weeks I took flying lessons. Three and half weeks after I started I had earned my wings, and I came back home with a Private Pilot License.
After Grade 12, Sheila and I went to separate high schools for Grade 13. And that might have been the end of any possibility of a relationship with each other.
However, then we had our Grade 12 graduation ceremony back at our old high school. That was on Saturday, December 4, 1965, my parents' 20th wedding anniversary. After the graduation ceremony, my friend invited me to go with him to the graduation dance, without telling me he would be with his girlfriend and his sister Sheila. A second miracle.
Soon he asked his girlfriend to dance. That left me sitting with Sheila on a bench along one wall of the auditorium. I really had no choice but to ask her to dance. The only dance routine I knew was the high school shuffle, but it was wonderful holding this sweet girl in my arms for the first time.
Over the summer I had been checked out on a 4-seat Cessna 172 at Wallaceburg Airport. Then, just two weeks after our Grade 12 graduation, on Sunday, December 19, I booked a brand new Cessna 172, worth $250,000 in today's economy. I wouldn't be old enough to rent a car for another 6 years. After I had arranged for the airplane, I drove over to Sheila's church and waited for her to leave the morning service. When she came out, I asked her for a date, to go flying with me, just the two of us. I had finally overcome my shyness with this special girl. And so she found herself airborne at 5000 feet on a cold December day with a boy she hardly knew. She was 17, I was 19. She has teased me several times since then that she wanted me to kiss her, and my response is "I don't kiss on a first date." That wasn't actually true. I was so busy flying that I probably never though of it.
Sheila is the only girl I have ever dated. Five and a half years after that first date, on Friday, July 2, 1971, and almost 10 years since I first set eyes on her, we married at the Huron Church Chapel on the grounds of the University of Western Ontario.
As I mentioned, looking back, I can recognize my first face-to-face meeting with Sheila as a miracle. And I have come to realize that our marriage is an arranged marriage, arranged by our Lord and God.
In His Grip,
Niels
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