Someone asked me why I hadn’t started writing my story from the beginning of when and how I met my husband, so ok, this is how it happened. The time was early November 1962 in an idyllic seaside town nestled in a little corner of the Caribbean Sea, the following month of December was when the town celebrated its fair which lasted through the Christmas holidays. Of course, there was a committee to put together the events to take place such as, soccer and basketball games; bicycle races; these particular races were not the bikers racing against each other in a set course, no…. the races consisted of closing main street, hanging a wire between two building and high across the street, ribbons with a number printed on them and a ring secured in one end would be hung on the wire. The bike riders would race passing under the wire trying to catch a ribbon by putting a stick through the ring; if they were successful, they would get the prize the number indicated. Phew, that is a long explanation! There were dances, plays, food and other events related to town fairs. That year, I was the secretary of that committee and as such, I had to organize fund raising events to help with the expenses of hiring the marimba for the festivities. I remember that someone donated a hand gun, a 32 Beretta. We made a list with numbers from 1 to 100 and were selling each number for Q10 each; at that time it was roughly $3.00. Full of excitement, during a meeting the president of the committee asked the other members who would take the raffle sheet first to offer chances to the towns people; well, no one who was in the committee wanted to touch the gun even though it was not loaded!! Frustrated, I took the gun together with the list and announced that I didn’t need anyone’s help!! At that time, I was working in a company that transported coffee from the plantations to the ocean going ships docked in another town that has a deep sea port, so I had very little time during the week to offer chances to the people. One day, walking home after work I saw a family friend enter a business and decided to go after him hoping that he would at least buy a chance for the handgun. When I entered, to my surprise the family friend was seating at a table with a man who obviously was not even from my country, he made introductions and told me that Bill (the man’s name) was going to build a fishing and hunting lodge up the river. Bill had the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve seen. After the introduction, I addressed myself to our friend explaining to him my reason for accosting him. After listening to my rehearsed speech, he then turned to Bill and told him what I had said and proceeded to write his name to a couple of chances and offered the sheet to Bill who bought 5 chances. I was happy because I had just a few numbers left. Long story short, when the raffle took place, nobody had bought the winning number and when our friend told Bill that I still had the gun, he bought the gun from me….. and that’s how I met my husband, I used to tell people that I got Bill with a gun!!
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