Summer love

Awhile back, I wrote a silly limerick for my writing group. It went something like this:

There once was a girl from Alliance,

Who said “no” till he was in compliance.

“If you want the milk now,

You must purchase the cow.”

They eloped, leaving the rest up to science.

This five-line masterpiece is about my parents, who were known as “The Bickersons” because they liked to spar with each other.

But not always. Theirs was a love story for the ages.

In 1940, after graduating from McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio, James John left for Detroit to work at the Ford Motor Company. Two years later, he returned to his parents’ home and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force.

Before Jimmy reported for duty in 1942, his parents, Esper and Jamile, hosted a farewell party at their home in Canton. Good thing. One of the guests was a nice single girl named Elia Guella, who lived in nearby Alliance.

Elia was likely invited to the party because her younger sister, Nores, took a shine to Jimmy’s brother, Carmen, who was movie-star handsome, resembling Rock Hudson. Seriously.

Ever the good journalist, I went straight to the horse’s mouth and confirmed this bit of family lore with Aunt Nores, who lives in suburban Pittsburgh and turns 96 on June 30. I called her on the phone.

“Yeah, I dated Carm. He was so good looking and real nice,” Aunt Nores said, taking an audible drag off her cigarette and a sip of something strong on the rocks. “But I married Jake the Snake. What else do you want to know?”

God, I love that woman.

Back to the Bickersons.

Jimmy, good-looking, shy and retiring, was 20. Elia, beautiful, outgoing and not the least bit shy, was 22. During the party, Jimmy spotted Elia, and their eyes met across a crowded room. Seriously.

“Love at first sight,” he wrote in a family history 50 years later.

In early 1944, Jimmy really wanted to see Elia, as in really, really wanted to see her. He went to great lengths to accomplish this, including going “AWOL,” as in absent without leave, as in ditching the military base in Fort Wayne without permission, as in kitchen duty as punishment for a month.

A friend brought Elia to the base to get Jimmy, who promptly got in the trunk of the car. Seriously.

In Jimmy’s mind, he’d gone well above and beyond the call of duty to be with his dream girl.

Not quite.

Elia, old fashioned despite her sophistication, told him they would need to get married first before any hanky panky. On February 3, 1944, they eloped and went before a justice of the peace in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Jimmy loved Elia. I know this for many reasons, not the least being that his cell phone password was “2-3-44,” their wedding anniversary date.

“I’ve known that woman longer than anyone in my life,” he said the day before she died on December 1, 2008.

Indeed, it’s undeniable that Jimmy John had claims on the phrase that woman well before anyone else who had the nerve to mess with Our Gretch. But I suspect my father meant it with love, devotion and a touch of fear, as sometimes happens in a 64-year marriage.

My father wasn’t one to freely offer a public display of his emotions, unless he was yelling at a Detroit sports team.

At his oldest grandson Scot’s wedding in 2002, Jimmy was asked for his and Elia’s secret to a good marriage: “Compromise and long walks,” he said.

Solo strolls? Absolutely.

It’s not surprising that Dad wasted little time in joining Mom after she passed. Five months and 19 days, to be exact: May 20, 2009. The poor man was lost without her.

Surely, they are enjoying a long and heavenly stroll together, I hope, negotiating yet another loving compromise above the clouds.

As it happens, today my nephew Scot and his wife, Christina, are celebrating 18 years of marriage. They’re also raising five children, a flock of chickens and an impressive vegetable garden.

Congratulations, you two. Only 46 more years to go.