Game of chance

It’s not often you find a Las Vegas slot machine sitting in the middle of an RV center’s waiting room. But there it was, next to the camouflage-themed popup camper marked down to $9,995.

An authentic Bally’s casino Blazing 777, the slot machine had plenty of complimentary credits for customers to pass the time as they waited for their recreational vehicles at Kline’s RV Center in Warren. Before I could pull that one-armed bandit’s lever, an older gentleman got up from his chair and walked toward me.

“Good morning, young lady,” he said.

Seeing his crisp, blue Oxford shirt with the RV company name and logo on its breast pocket, I knew this was probably the owner, Paul B. Kline. I was correct.

“Morning, sir,” I said.

It was a sunny Tuesday in November, and I was there to have our motorhome, a.k.a., The Beast, winterized. It was barely 20 degrees outside.

Welcome to Michigan autumn.

We had prayed the RV’s water lines weren’t frozen. But the odds were against us since we had waited too long to have it winterized before the first big snow hit just a week after Halloween. (I blame General RV for the delay, mostly because I can.)

The service guy came in from the back shop and showed me a small, plastic screw-cap coated with ice. Crap, I thought.

“Worst case, it’ll cost you some big bucks,” Mr. Kline said.

“Now, now. You’re lucky the water lines sit above the outside wall in your Class B motorhome,” the nice service guy said of this particular Winnebago model.

He explained how they would run the RV’s heater to warm up its underbelly. Thawing would take at least two hours. I’d hope for the best and try to fill the next few hours doing something productive. Good thing I had brought my iPad.

Not wanting to appear rude, I sat down with Mr. Kline, who was back in his chair next to the half-covered window blocking the bright sun. At 90, he was an interesting man who has led a full life. And boy, he could talk the feathers off a chicken, as our friend Kelly says.

He’s owned the business for more than 40 years, and nearly every day he still comes into the office, which his son Carl now runs. It’s quite a success story from his humble beginnings as a farm boy in western Kentucky, near Paducah. A star basketball player at Mayfield High School, the lanky, 6-foot-4-inch-tall teenager led the Cardinals to a state championship.

“It was a big deal in Mayfield, let me tell you,” he said, unable to recall the exact year.

In his youth, Mr. Kline had worked as a trucker hauling cattle, which he hated because “if they’re not stacked in properly, one falls and they all fall down.”

Hogs, he said, were much easier to haul. Good to know.

I thought of that children’s song, “Ring Around the Rosie”: Ashes, ashes, they all fall down. What the heck was that about anyway?

Then I vowed never to eat steak or pork again.

He also raced motorcycles for a while, until he came home more than once looking pretty banged up. His wife, Wilma, laid down the law, telling her husband if he didn’t quit racing, she’d leave him.

“She was very convincing,” Mr. Kline said with a smile.

Then he added something else. “Peaches and cream oatmeal.”

What? Peaches and cream oatmeal?

“Those were the last words my wife said to me before she died,” he added.

I was struck by his willingness to tell a stranger something so personal.

Mr. Kline continued telling the story as if it had happened yesterday instead of eight years ago.

“Wilma knew she was going to die because she told me the night before,” he said. “She said Jesus came to her, and it was time for her to go home. She believed it because the day before, she went and bought a cemetery plot, with her own money, mind you. Then she laid out her funeral clothes, called our daughter and told her the same story.”

The next morning, they woke up and Paul asked Wilma what was for breakfast.

“Peaches and cream oatmeal,” she said.

“Then she looked up at me and keeled over like a mackerel,” he said.

That’s what Mr. Kline said. “Like a mackerel.”

He called an ambulance, but she was already gone. A massive stroke, doctors had said. “And that was that,” Mr. Kline added.

I didn’t know what to say, so I patted his arm to show support.

“Well, it’s almost time for lunch,” he said, as his son appeared with Mr. Kline’s jacket. “Help yourself to some more coffee. There’s some snack packs in there, too. Make yourself at home.”

Later, I googled his wife’s obituary.

Wilma died September 26, 2011, at age 82.

Born on August 16, 1929, Wilma J. Riley lived in Graves County, part of western Kentucky. She was one of five brothers and four sisters.

Wilma and Paul married on June 26, 1948. They lived in Mayfield and then Murray, Kentucky, until 1950, when they moved to Michigan. They had five children and 12 grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

You’re probably wondering why I’d write more than 900 words about a complete stranger and his wife. The thing is, I felt as if I knew the Klines. They each have qualities I admire: a kind, hard-working, fun-loving couple with a strong devotion to family and friends.

Honestly, their love story reminded me of one much closer to home.

Next month, my sister, Sandy, and her husband, Joe, are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. (To add perspective to this milestone, I was 9 when they tied the knot in 1969. Too old for a flower girl, and too young to be a bridesmaid!)

Married for 50 years this December 19, they’ve been through life’s ups and downs as individuals and as a couple. Yet they have always found their way back to each other.

I’m amazed at how married people stay together, through thick and thin, richer and poorer, for better or worse, and all that.

No doubt, marriage is a gamble. A game of chance. A long, happy one is sometimes the luck of the draw. Quite simply, it takes a solid foundation, lots of love and hard work.

And perhaps some peaches and cream thrown in for good measure.

Happy anniversary, you two!