The Beginning...again...

Paul & I met at BJU the summer before our senior year. We were both very busy with school, I was working to part-time jobs and taking my heaviest school load. Paul was doing student teaching and oh, yes, I was even paying for MY first car....a red dodge charger with a black stripe down both side of the car. The LORD answered SO MANY prayers that last year of college - for both of us! There was one time when I was paying my monthly bills and I had just enough for everything - EXCEPT for a .25 cent stamp (yeah, stamps were only .25 cents back then...). I DID NOT share with ANYONE about the need of a stamp - or .25 cents to get one. That night just before light bell, a white envelope came sliding under my dorm room door. It said "Vicki Carr" on it. I opened it up and yep! Inside was ONE .25 cent stamp! I was able to mail my car payment off.

We managed to date - Paul came home for Christmas with me that year and it was then that we 'declared' our simple love for one another. We decided to go steady for the rest of the year.

In May of our senior year, my friend Renee Smith (staff member) chaperoned a trip for a picnic lunch to Paris Mountain. Paul decided to bring a game of horse shoes along to 'play' after our lunch. We went for a walk out in the woods - with Renee of course and he opened his box of horse shoes - right in the middle of a thick of woods and says, "this is a good place to play". I said 'not here....there's not enough room to throw the shoes....turning around to Renee to see if she agreed with me and she was 'walking away' - I turned around to see Paul down on one knee with a ring box in his hand. He said "Vicki, I love you and want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?" Like a dope - I said "on one condition", he said "what's that?" I said, "you let me pay off my school bill. I don't want you to 'marry' a school bill." He said, "okay, I'll let you pay off your school bill." I said "Okay, Yes, I'll marry you!"

We wanted to get married at the beginning of December, but because of another story, we didn't get married until the day after Christmas....that story is for another time.....