While I am grateful for being able to celebrate another year of life, the best birthday I ever experienced occurred fifty years ago today.
It was 1975. I was a freshman at the University of Missouri and wildly in love with a young woman attending nearby Stephens College. I came to “Mizzou” from a Chicago suburb where I went to high school; she hailed from Santa Cruz, California. We had developed a wonderful friendship which appeared to be ending as she was intent on not returning to Missouri for the next school year.
I had to do something to prove my love to her—something big time. And I did.
A few weeks earlier she and some girlfriends had traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for Spring Break. I had no money or transportation to join her, but I didn’t let her know that wasn’t going to stop me.
My plan was to hitchhike 1,400 miles to meet her there. My dream was that she would see how in love I was with her and decide to return to Missouri for her sophomore year.
I packed a gym bag full of spare clothes and put up my thumb.
By the time I made it to Orlando (200 miles north of Fort Lauderdale), I was flat broke and had been escorted off the Interstate highway by law enforcement as no hitchhiking was allowed. That evening, I was desperate. I’m not proud of what happened next, but it did soon lead to something very good.
While attempting to steal a car in a hotel parking lot with the keys left in the ignition, I was surrounded by police.
After questioning me, one of the officers placed me in his car. I assumed I was headed to jail, but instead I drove with him all night long. He was an incredibly nice man of about thirty, who wanted to know my whole story. As we talked, he shared a lot of wisdom and even spiritual advice. Just before sunrise he treated me to a hearty breakfast and then drove me to the Greyhound Bus Station, where he purchased a ticket to Fort Lauderdale.
As I prepared to board, he used an old school slogan to encourage me: “Get the girl, Brian.”
I called her from a payphone upon arrival. She and her girlfriends drove to pick me up. Though I slept on the beach and showered in public bathrooms, we had a great time.
A couple weeks later it was April 3, and she prepared a picnic lunch for us. Midway through, she handed me a birthday card. I was near tears when I read, “…and I’ll be coming back for school next year! Love, Susie.”
We were married three years later.
I certainly got the girl, as well as four children and seven grandchildren.
And, I still wonder if the person who put me on that Greyhound was an angel in disguise.