My wife and I met while working at nearby Vermont State Parks. We were actually friends for quite awhile before we began dating. However I suspect this was just because she lost my phone number at the end of the summer, or at least that's the story she sticks too! :)Anyways, fate intervened, and lo and behold one day I'm heading into Dick's Sporting Goods to get new line for my fishing poles, and there was Ashley. Outside with her mother and little brother checking out puppies some guy was selling out of the back of his truck in front of the store. Not oblivious to the signs of neglect, she snapped up one of the Weimeranner puppies and took it home. Izzy has been a fixture in our lives since.
Ever mindful of the fact she was the boss of the flower beds at her park, I slowly gained her confidence to be able to relocate a couple apple trees to better spots, and work on beds without her supervision. Important to note I was allowed a free hand with the raised beds we used for veggies. So any free days I had were spent in the park of my future wife, puttering in gardens, and fishing, while waiting for her to get done work or have some free time.
I had been planning to ask her to marry me for awhile, the issue was the ring. In the non-summer season I worked as a teachers aide, and didn't have a lot of money saved up. Still I was able to slowly and surely over time, build up what was for me a small sum. Then one day after pay day I had a lucky break. I had just deposited my check the day before, and not spent anything. There I was sitting reading the paper and I saw that a jewelry store in St. Alban's was going out of business and was selling off their stock at 40-50% off.
Oh the timing! I shot down to the office, and lied to the secretary that I had forgotten about a dentist appointment, and had to go, but I'd be back in a couple hours. Pathetic lie, but I'm not very good at that, and it served it's purpose. I got to the store and checked out their ring selection. I knew which one it was as soon as I saw it, but looked at all the others to be sure. Still kept coming back to the first one that caught my eye. It was a Marquis cut diamond, and I just liked it so much more than any of the others.
So I bought it, and kept it in my pocket. I held onto that ring for about a week waiting for the right time. Just seemed like whatever I thought the right moment to be would never come, and that ring was burning a hole in my pocket. So one day after she got out of work I decided to force the issue. There's a promitory at her park, a beautiful point that juts out into Lake Champlain on the inland sea (where we'd later be married). I knew this was the place, but how to get her there?
She got out of work and I met her on the porch. It was a cruddy day, gray, drizzling, and Ashley was just glad to be out of work. It had been a long day, a not so good day. I asked her if there was anything I could do to make her day better, and she said no. That's when I knew it was time. So I asked her to go for a walk out to the point, and she looked at me like I was crazy.
"It's raining," she said. But I prompted her to go get her rain jacket and come with me. We got to the point looked around, and she started to head back. Thinking fast I took the ring from my pocket, opened it up, and set the box on a piece of bare ground covered with flat shale rocks. Knowing no park ranger can resist the urge to pick up trash in their park, I said "hey someone left something over here." She came over and started to say someone left their ring. Then I explained it was her ring, and asked her to marry me, to which she replied yes.
Little over a year later we had a pig roast with our family attending, and were married on the very spot she picked up the ring.
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