Page 56 - February Sun Rays

Ken and Carolyn Summers DIANE & JIM TWILLEY
GO, TULSA
KEN & CAROLYN SUMMERS
A DISNEY FLICK WAS ALL IT TOOK Jim and I had met a
few weeks earlier at
Ken and I went to see Dumbo at the White Theatre the Cougar Den on the
in Fort Worth, Texas on a Saturday morning in 1949. University of Houston
We were in sixth grade. We sat in the back row, and campus. When Jim
he put his arm around me. I’ve now spent the last 56 invited me out to the
years watching TV with the same kid! Bluebonnet Bowl,
I quickly accepted.
Tulsa University was
playing the University
of Tennessee, and Jim’s
brother Howard played
for Tulsa. Most of Jim’s
immediate family was
sitting in the stands Jim and Diane Twilley
beside us, so on my first
date with my future husband I also met his parents, sisters and brother.

We all sat in the rain trying to cheer Tulsa on to victory and by the end of
the game we were soaked to the skin. We eagerly anticipated the banquet
at the Shamrock Hotel taking place later that evening.

Rushing back to my parents’ house to change clothes and dry my hair after
the game, we arrived too late to the Shamrock and missed the banquet.
We did, however, get to visit with Howard and some of the family and other
football players afterwards, so in the end it all worked out.

Tom and Vivian Stidvent JOSEPH & DEBORAH WELSH
MOTHER KNOWS BEST
TOM & VIVIAN STIDVENT
FALLING FOR EACH OTHER We were next door
neighbors living in
Vivian and I met at the University of Houston in the fall Smithtown, New York
of 1965. We had our first date in December, 1965. We in 1965. During high
parked near downtown Houston and decided to eat at a school, we hung out
cafeteria before going to see The Great Race. When we with a big group, most
got to the end of the serving line and I reached for my of whom were in couples.
wallet, it was not in my pocket. I left Vivian as collateral Joe didn’t have a date
and ran two blocks to retrieve my wallet from the car, for the senior prom
then ran back and paid the tab. After the movie we and, having missed his
walked around some and came to an area that had a junior prom, his mom
shallow puddle several yards wide. I gallantly offered to threatened to go to the
carry her across the puddle, but halfway across I slid on dance with him. She was
a patch of mud and fell backwards. We both wound up not to be taken lightly, so
soaked and laughing. I am glad she agreed to another when she suggested to Deborah and Joseph Welsh at the prom
date. We married three years later. Joe that he ask the “nice
Polish girl next door,” all of our friends were abuzz with talk about how he
54 | SUNRAYS FEBRUARY 2017 was going to ask me to the prom. I waited anxiously every time the group
got together for an informal dance or a night of listening to old 45s, but
after a while I began to think it was all just a big rumor. After all, Joe was a
cute guy and why would a senior want to take me to his prom? One evening
in March after a group get-together, Joe walked me to my door. It was at
that moment that he asked me to the prom, merely as a friend helping a
friend out. Of course I gleefully said yes, acknowledging the “friend only”
clause. We went to the prom, danced and had a wonderful time and have
been together ever since. We will have been married 50 years on July 10
of this year - and to think that it all came about because of his mother!

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