Robert_Stephens
New member
It was 1970, and I had begun my 4th year of Jeeps, since I had my first when I was 14, as all ranch kids up Montana way drive early on the farms and ranches. It was my senior year in HS and I had been courting a lot up to that time, and one day I spotted a maiden that stunned me. She was like right off a Beach Boys album about surfer girls. Drop dead gorgeous. Long blonde hair, amazing face and a dimple that would stop the Russian army. I had to have her.
As happens in all young men's lives, they spot a maiden, at about 18 or so, and just know that is the one. Audrey Abbott was the one. I did not know she had been after me also since school started so it was a fit. I ask her out and our first date was in my 1960, CAT yellow, ex-mosquito department abatement Jeep, #3, a CJ5. We went out to Cold Heart Creek and went 4 wheeling for her first time. She went crazy over it and the Jeep, jeepin' and being together became our mantra and life from then on. I was the happiest young man on Earth; The babe, the Jeep, jeepin'!!!
We got out of school and I had college lined up and work for the summer of 1970, fighting fire for the US Forest Service on an Initial Attack Helicopter crew. I was set. My folks would bring Audrey to me on weekends as they were about 150 miles distance back home. We continued our adventure with heart and Jeeps. In the photo below is us in 1970 in my little trailer I lived in in the mountains there where I worked and the ARCO station where she would bring me homemade CC cookies, where I worked nights.
Audrey and I, 1970, in my trailer, eating and my mom took the photo. We were 18
And Cookies, babe, and ARCO,
.............and we did it all in Jeep #3, a CJ5, 1960 with the four banger and me on the roll bar I made. It was 1970
Time went on and the courtship blossomed and finally I ask Audrey about getting married and she said yes. Now I was installed in life with unspeakable joy. I was thrilled. I told my folks and since they loved Audrey to no end (my mom used to tease me and call her "God's Perfect Girlfriend") and was ready for the next chapter of what turned out to be a Grand and Disturbing Adventure for the next 42 years.
Along about August of 1970, I got back from NM on a huge number of fires I was dispatched to with my Helo fire crew and saw NM for the first time and knew that one day I would like to live there. But I digress. I got off those fires in NM and returned home to my trailer and found I had a bunch of letters from home and one from Audrey. I opened hers first.
It began, one of 5 horrific pages; "Dear Bob, I am so sorry to send you this but I have to say goodbye. My mom has warned me that I can do better than this and you are two 'dangerous', as she says. She says you are too crazy, wild, and will be dead by the time your 30. She says there is no future with men-boys like you. She says there is more to life than 'JEEPS and adventure and being crazy and riding in helicopters and chasing everything. I am so sorry"...........and at the end of the 5th page was, "Goodbye."
I was stunned. I was crushed. I read it several times. I then cried and cried and cried. My world had come unglued and you men here reading this know how this feels. I never did really reconcile this. So much so, from that moment forward I never did date or traffic with an American woman again. All the loves hence were from out of the country, including my now deceased wife, a Mexican-Asian and my long time girlfriend, Astronaut Ph.D. Judih Resnik, who perished on Space Shuttle Challenger, at T+73 seconds after launch on January 28th, 1986. No, she was from Israel.
Thus, I then went into my forever and healed and became an Artist-Archaeologist contractor for NASA.
The decades passed astern. Then, on this magical medium of the internet and a site called FaceBook, I joined the latter and once I figured out how it worked, I found many friends around the world and then, classmates too. And then got the idea out of the blue, through a russian girl I went to HS with, to find Audrey Abbott.
I did. March 24, 2010. And I summoned her in chat there at FB and, "Hi, Audrey. Everyone calls me Robert A.M. Stephens, but you can still call me 'Bob' ". And over the next months the rest of the story unfolded, for which I never knew.
We were overjoyed to find each other. I learned we were both widowed. She had gone on to marry and produced two sons and her husband fell off a house and died 5 years earlier. My wife died in 2000. I was not dead, as her mom predicted, but her mom sure was. And over all the decades, she had been the one that carried the torch for me/us; every letter, every drawing, every gift, photo, present, love poems, heart words, photos, momentos she had from my folks, etc etc. She had went to every HS reunion, every HS alumni get together, every chance and endeavor to find where Robert was.
And finally, on FB, once we re-connected, I told her I had chased her once and now it was her turn to come to me in, yes, finally, New Mexico after so many years, finally, I did finally live there. She did come to me. And below, after 42 years and counting, here we are:
Audrey and VEX, NM, 2010
Audrey in a Jeep again, 26 Jeeps later, her first driving lesson in Las Cruces, NM, 2012
Me and Audrey, High School Prom, 1970.........
Audrey and Me and VEX, Las Cruces, NM, 2012, 42 years and counting....and that is formally, "Leaver Girl". Damn Girlfriend.....
I have learned many many things over the decades so long ago, of course after 60 years one does. But most significantly is that the supreme happiness of a human being is the absolute conviction they are loved by another. That time and heart prevail. That also, Jeeps are one of the greatest inventions of all time, for people like us all with passion and adventure, to allow us chase the unknown and that since most of the earth is 'unpaved', to see wonders unimagined.
So, Audrey, Jeep girl of my forever, I leave you this when you read and come over here today:
--In the end, I will have traveled to the far sides of the world, ventured into harms way in contempt of wrath, chased danger, and loved fiercely. I will gaze last into my maiden's eyes, you, when they place the two coins upon my eyes for the boatman, and I shall remember The River Styx, as I sail into my forever--
I love you Audrey.
Hat is tipped to everyone, thank you for reading.
Robert
As happens in all young men's lives, they spot a maiden, at about 18 or so, and just know that is the one. Audrey Abbott was the one. I did not know she had been after me also since school started so it was a fit. I ask her out and our first date was in my 1960, CAT yellow, ex-mosquito department abatement Jeep, #3, a CJ5. We went out to Cold Heart Creek and went 4 wheeling for her first time. She went crazy over it and the Jeep, jeepin' and being together became our mantra and life from then on. I was the happiest young man on Earth; The babe, the Jeep, jeepin'!!!
We got out of school and I had college lined up and work for the summer of 1970, fighting fire for the US Forest Service on an Initial Attack Helicopter crew. I was set. My folks would bring Audrey to me on weekends as they were about 150 miles distance back home. We continued our adventure with heart and Jeeps. In the photo below is us in 1970 in my little trailer I lived in in the mountains there where I worked and the ARCO station where she would bring me homemade CC cookies, where I worked nights.
Audrey and I, 1970, in my trailer, eating and my mom took the photo. We were 18
And Cookies, babe, and ARCO,
.............and we did it all in Jeep #3, a CJ5, 1960 with the four banger and me on the roll bar I made. It was 1970
Time went on and the courtship blossomed and finally I ask Audrey about getting married and she said yes. Now I was installed in life with unspeakable joy. I was thrilled. I told my folks and since they loved Audrey to no end (my mom used to tease me and call her "God's Perfect Girlfriend") and was ready for the next chapter of what turned out to be a Grand and Disturbing Adventure for the next 42 years.
Along about August of 1970, I got back from NM on a huge number of fires I was dispatched to with my Helo fire crew and saw NM for the first time and knew that one day I would like to live there. But I digress. I got off those fires in NM and returned home to my trailer and found I had a bunch of letters from home and one from Audrey. I opened hers first.
It began, one of 5 horrific pages; "Dear Bob, I am so sorry to send you this but I have to say goodbye. My mom has warned me that I can do better than this and you are two 'dangerous', as she says. She says you are too crazy, wild, and will be dead by the time your 30. She says there is no future with men-boys like you. She says there is more to life than 'JEEPS and adventure and being crazy and riding in helicopters and chasing everything. I am so sorry"...........and at the end of the 5th page was, "Goodbye."
I was stunned. I was crushed. I read it several times. I then cried and cried and cried. My world had come unglued and you men here reading this know how this feels. I never did really reconcile this. So much so, from that moment forward I never did date or traffic with an American woman again. All the loves hence were from out of the country, including my now deceased wife, a Mexican-Asian and my long time girlfriend, Astronaut Ph.D. Judih Resnik, who perished on Space Shuttle Challenger, at T+73 seconds after launch on January 28th, 1986. No, she was from Israel.
Thus, I then went into my forever and healed and became an Artist-Archaeologist contractor for NASA.
The decades passed astern. Then, on this magical medium of the internet and a site called FaceBook, I joined the latter and once I figured out how it worked, I found many friends around the world and then, classmates too. And then got the idea out of the blue, through a russian girl I went to HS with, to find Audrey Abbott.
I did. March 24, 2010. And I summoned her in chat there at FB and, "Hi, Audrey. Everyone calls me Robert A.M. Stephens, but you can still call me 'Bob' ". And over the next months the rest of the story unfolded, for which I never knew.
We were overjoyed to find each other. I learned we were both widowed. She had gone on to marry and produced two sons and her husband fell off a house and died 5 years earlier. My wife died in 2000. I was not dead, as her mom predicted, but her mom sure was. And over all the decades, she had been the one that carried the torch for me/us; every letter, every drawing, every gift, photo, present, love poems, heart words, photos, momentos she had from my folks, etc etc. She had went to every HS reunion, every HS alumni get together, every chance and endeavor to find where Robert was.
And finally, on FB, once we re-connected, I told her I had chased her once and now it was her turn to come to me in, yes, finally, New Mexico after so many years, finally, I did finally live there. She did come to me. And below, after 42 years and counting, here we are:
Audrey and VEX, NM, 2010
Audrey in a Jeep again, 26 Jeeps later, her first driving lesson in Las Cruces, NM, 2012
Me and Audrey, High School Prom, 1970.........
Audrey and Me and VEX, Las Cruces, NM, 2012, 42 years and counting....and that is formally, "Leaver Girl". Damn Girlfriend.....
I have learned many many things over the decades so long ago, of course after 60 years one does. But most significantly is that the supreme happiness of a human being is the absolute conviction they are loved by another. That time and heart prevail. That also, Jeeps are one of the greatest inventions of all time, for people like us all with passion and adventure, to allow us chase the unknown and that since most of the earth is 'unpaved', to see wonders unimagined.
So, Audrey, Jeep girl of my forever, I leave you this when you read and come over here today:
--In the end, I will have traveled to the far sides of the world, ventured into harms way in contempt of wrath, chased danger, and loved fiercely. I will gaze last into my maiden's eyes, you, when they place the two coins upon my eyes for the boatman, and I shall remember The River Styx, as I sail into my forever--
I love you Audrey.
Hat is tipped to everyone, thank you for reading.
Robert
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