around the corner.  The next thing I knew, this beautiful girl with long dark hair sat down next to me.  I immediately recognized her from the dream God had given me and was tongue-tied.  I didn’t know what to say but she introduced herself and we started talking.

My memory is a little vague about this but fortunately Pat has a better memory of those events than I do.  Seems that after the service she had planned on catching a ride back to the dormitory with a friend however on learning this, I offered to give her a ride back to the dormitory.  Somewhere along the way, we exchanged phone numbers.  As a side note, on driving her back to the dorm, I managed to get lost so it took an extended period of time to get back to her dorm (which gave us more time together. :-).

In the middle of the following week I received a phone call from her.  Seems she had made some Christmas cookies and asked if I would like some.  It didn’t take me long to get over there and, over the next month or so, we spent a lot of time together.  Somewhere along the line I told her about the dream God gave me of her.  I don’t recall that she said anything in response to that but it didn’t interfere with the time we were spending together.

About this same time, I realized that the engagement and wedding ring I had put on layaway in West Palm Beach had only one more payment to make and that I would need to travel down there to pick it up.  Now up to this point in time, neither Pat nor I had talked about an engagement or marriage; the nearest thing to that kind of conversation being when I had told her about the dream of her that God had given me 7 years earlier.  Nevertheless, we had become close and I decided to tell her about the engagement and wedding ring set that I had put on lay-a-way and that I needed to travel down to West Palm Beach to pick it up.  Pat said: “Why don’t we travel down together” and the next weekend or so we headed down.

We made it into a kind of outing but the first order of business was to go into the jewelry store and pick up the engagement and wedding ring set.  On arriving and picking up the set, we returned to the car and were looking at it when I realized I had left the receipt in the store.  After putting the set back in the box, I slid the set under my seat, went back into the store to get the receipt, and returned to the car.  I was just about to crank up and head out when I realized that Pat was wearing the engagement ring.  Bottom line…..sometimes I am really, really, very stupid but, offsetting that, I also think that I am very, very fortunate.

We were married about six months later in August 1973 and went on to graduate from the University of Florida in 1974.  Seven years was a long time and the waiting, at times, was very difficult.  God fulfilled his promise and gave me the wife He showed me in the dream.  As a side note, it’s now forty-seven years later and I can tell you that Pat has proven to be all that one might expect when God himself finds someone for you.  Doesn’t mean that troubles didn’t visit us from time-to-time but being committed to our relationship and to God, we worked our way through them.  I am so glad that I chose to wait for her.

Upon graduating from the University of Florida in 1974, I accepted a job with the Lake Worth Utilities Authority as an electrical engineer and we moved down to West Palm Beach.  In 1975 our first born, Gabriel, was born and in 1976 that our daughter, Misty, was born.  Things changed though when, in 1977, I said to Pat: “Why don’t we move to Alaska?” and she said “Why not?”. 

We began to do some research on the various communities in Alaska that we might want to live in and ultimately selected Ketchikan, located in Southeast Alaska.  After praying about it and asking God to open or close the door for the move as He would so choose, I drafted an inquiry to the local electric utility in Ketchikan, Ketchikan Public Utilities, to determine if there might be a position I would qualify for.  Shortly thereafter, I received a response stating that they were in fact looking for an electrical engineer and asking me to come up for an interview.  I traveled up to Ketchikan for the interview, was offered, and accepted, the position on the spot.

Our time in Alaska was a time of trial and of success; they are described in some of the stories coming up.