By Retabess Ling
My love story began on a Friday evening in March of 1946. My family had moved the first of March from a farm near Moran to a farm northeast of Iola. I was 15 years old and had started the second semester of my junior year at Iola High.
On this particular day at about four o’clock my mother and I were in the kitchen and saw a neat little black Ford Model A Roadster drive in and go directly to the barn.
In a few minutes the car returned to the house and we soon heard a knock on the door. My mother said for me to go answer the door.
When I opened the door there stood a tall, skinny young man dressed in bib overalls, a gray shirt, and a gray ball cap pulled down where I could hardly see his eyes. He said, “My name is Kenny Ling and I wondered if you would like to go to the basketball game tonight?”
I was taken aback and I informed him I would have to ask my mother.
Returning to the kitchen I told my mother that there was some guy out there that wants to take me to the basketball game. Expecting her to say no because I had never been allowed to date, I was shocked when she asked me if I wanted to go. My answer was, “I really would like to go to the game and he looks like he wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
I returned and told him I could go.
When he returned to pick me up I was shocked. He was very handsome and was dressed to perfection. He was a 19-year-old neighbor that had asked my Dad for permission to ask me for a date. He had seen me at the game the week before.
The first and only boy I ever dated became my friend and lover and we were married four years later. We married on June 1, 1950 and had been married 68 years before my beloved Kenny passed in 2018.
Really, there is never a happy ending to a true love story.
