The Ring of Engagement 2

Dave, my father, didn't buy that ring.

It belonged to Mildred, his mother. His father Ted gave it to her. His aunt (name?) gave it to him, though no one knows how she came to own it. If Ted's aunt was about 30 when she first wore the ring, it may be 100 years old. And for the third time the woman who wore it gave it to a man in the next generation to say "I love you."

My mother always said that when I wanted to get married that I could give the ring. In the last decade or so, she became convinced that she'd go to the grave with it. Laurelyn and I had been together long and happily without marriage. It was the secret to our success, I always said.

When I visited my parents on mother's day weekend and asked my mother for the ring, she handed it over saying only that she wasn't sure she wanted to give it up. I thought I was announcing My Intention to Marry. No one heard it.

A few months later, when Laurelyn and I called to say we were engaged, my parents were shocked. Shocked and amazed, I tell you. I'd convinced them that had no future for me. But I surprised them as much as I'd surprised Laurelyn.

The Ring of Engagement 1

When my father met my mother, she was still in high school. He'd graduated a year before and was working that summer with a roofer in nearby Marietta, NY. The weekend came. The Firemen's Field Days were on. In central New York, that still means barbecue chicken and beer. And girls.

Jean Marie Schenkenberger is the oldest daughter of Carl Martin and Edwina Bantle, who had a camp on Otisco Lake not far from Marietta. But "camp" means a rambling two-story with terrific southwest views. Because if you were the first generation of successful Americans in aGerman family, you didn't mind showing that you were making it. The momentum of your father's business - my great grandfather - and your own restless hard work gave you some spending money.

Schenkenberger's Meat Market at 300 Park Street was doing well in a Fritz and Ed's neighborhood. That's how their friends knew them. If you called across the room, he'd answer to "Fritz," because he was German. Politically incorrect as hell, he'd hold up his can of beer and make his way to you smiling. Ed would spout some foul-mouthed adjective and give you a sloppy kiss. Jean looks shy and excitable in the few photos that capture her as a teenager. She's my mother.

David John Roberts is the oldest son of Edward (Ted) and Mildred Gurney, she a housewife who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 30 and he a largely self-taught electrical engineer who ended his career designing diagnostic equipment for Upsate Medical Center. Mildred was told that MS would take her in a few years. She lived at least 45 more. The myth of my father's youth is that he and his buddies worked hard at having a good time but not at school. That's my mother's version. But his parents weren't story tellers either. He was turning out fine, and "Please, kids, the baseball game is on," Mildred would say.

My father and mother don't talk about falling in love. They met, they liked each other, they went on liking each other. He gave her a ring, which turned into a promise to marry someday. Sure they love each other. It's just not how they tell the story.

A couple of facts: the yellow stone is topaz, the band is pink gold.

To be continued...