Show and Tell - Love Story Part 1

Welcome my contribution to Mel's Show and Tell. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you're just missing out and I expect you to go back and show some blogger love.

Speaking of blogger love - I've just love all of you guys for your comments and support. I'm sorry I've been MIA - it's been a week. I think I also need to get a second laptop. Mr. Marvelous and I have too many projects going on the same computer.

Now let's get to the reason we're here. A Love Story Part 1. In order for you to understand how Mr. Marvelous and I met, we're going to have to go back. And I mean way back...

Marvy's grandfather is a fifth generation Texan. Imagine it's the 1940's. He was a tall Scotch- Irish, red-headed, strikingly handsome man with a big personality. He trained as a marine but as timing would have it the war pretty much ended right as he was about to head to Japan. Since the war was over he went back home to South Texas and was a dirt poor crop-duster pilot when eventually he went to work for PanAm.

Marvy's grandmother is Guatemalan. In the 1940's she was a beautiful and sophisticated woman from a family with means. Her father passed away when she was very young and her mother took her father's place in the business he founded years prior. She grew up in an affluent household. One that traveled regularly to the US and Europe. Of course Spanish is her first language, but she speaks excellent English. She even went to boarding school in San Francisco.

Amazingly for that time in the 1940's and given the society for that day in Central America, Marvy's grandmother worked. She was a greeter for PanAm. Think pill hats and white gloved women there to greet the passengers as they walked down the steps- back in the days before jetways. Yup, there we go.

Okay now go back and take a look at the picture at the top. Way in the back is the old Guatemalan Terminal. Look closely and it kind of looks like Casablanca. This is how the young Guatemalan PanAm greeter, meets the strikingly handsome man in the PanAm uniform.

Now it was already bold enough for her to take a job at that time - can you imagine the hoopla when this woman fell in love with a man who had no land or estate to his name and married him? I so wish I could go back in time and be a fly on the wall for that one. Let's just say that she risked much in the way of family support by her actions. Eventually, they did marry and raised three bi-lingual, dual-citizen children - one of which is my father-in-law.

Wanna know what's cool? PanAm and that Guatemalan airport is such a significant piece of Marvy's grandparents history. But I found this photo, taken in 1979 -in my own grandmother's basement in Ohio.