Today’s Run:  3.60 miles

My husband and I met the very first day of eighth grade.  We were sent to the Principals office together.  That is the story we like to tell and most of it is true.  We were not in trouble however, the home room had forgotten our milk passes and we were sent to the office to retrieve them. That is how we met and for the most part (give or take a few arguments) we have been together ever since.  How romantic!

Because we have been together for that long, we have been required to participate in school functions together.  Enter:  School programs.

Our Civics/History Teacher was BIG on school programs and she had one every Fall and every Spring.  The Fall one was called The Harvest Happening and the Spring one was a Patriotic Program. We were not happy to be in either of them but being we were the students and she was the teacher…yup~we participated.

The Patriotic Program was not so awful.  You stood up and as a group sang a few songs:”I’m just a flag waving American” and said some things like, “I just love a parade, the Fourth of July just wouldn’t be right without a parade”.  But the Harvest Happening…

You see, my mother had made me a Pumpkin Suit.  It was HUGE!  It took two weeks of wadded up newspapers to stuff it to capacity.  I wore green tights, the stuffed pumpkin suit, and a hat made from a toilet paper tube (the tube was covered in green fabric and looked like a stem) and had to walk around in front of my classmates and hand out candy to little kids.  I caught a lot of flack from my friends for that.  They all sang their little song and then their humiliation was over.  Mine lasted about two hours at the reception after the program.

And I had to do it eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade.  Year after year I saved newspapers and dutifully dressed up as the Great Pumpkin.  Our teacher loved it.  The little kids coming to me for candy loved it.  The parents loved it.  My husband to be thought it was cute and always managed to get a pic of me for the yearbook.  (thanks dear.)

I have turned the house upside down this afternoon looking for that pic of myself in the pumpkin suit but to no avail.   You will just have to trust me on this one~I look pretty silly.  BUT, here is a pic of my husband and myself in our Jr. year of High School.  We had been “together” at this time for three years.  We are both still 16 in this pic.  circa 1978.