How I Met Your Mother

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Every family has its origin stories. When my kids ask about how our family got started, this is the story I tell.

I arrived at the University of Northern Iowa in August 1988 via a circuitous route. My college career had been interrupted by four years of military service overseas. Now I was stuck in a kind of purgatory.

In my view, college students were a “waste of groceries,” and now I was one of them. And to top that, at the ripe old age of 24 I was labeled a non-traditional student. I was a military veteran who’d been stationed in Germany and Greece and now I was surrounded by a bunch of civilian kids whose most pressing problem was figuring out where they were going to find the cheapest beer.

I was squarely unhappy. I was stranded in a place I didn’t want to be, surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t want to be around. So I said to myself, “Self, you need to get in and out of here as quickly as possible. You’ve got two years ahead of you. Put your head down and move forward. No booze, no women and no extra-curricular activities.” I was on track to live a monk’s life of focus and purpose.

Yeah. Right.

I forgot that I’d spent the previous two years on an island in the Aegean Sea. Let’s just say that items one and two in my credo got tossed out the window almost immediately.

That left extra-curricular activities.

After I gave my first speech in speech class, the professor asked if I was aware UNI had a competitive speech team. He was one of the team coaches and was looking to fill out his roster. I told him I’d done that in high school, and while the offer was tempting, I was on a straight-line course to get in and out of UNI as quickly as humanly possible.

From then on my professor was like a dog with a bone. He worked on me for the next two weeks. Finally after class one day he said, “You know, you could go to nationals right now with no training.” Bingo. He’d found my soft spot. Two years in a row in high school I just missed qualifying for the All-State speech competition. He’d figured out the code to getting me motivated: I had unfinished business. I joined the speech team just in time to go to the first tournament of the year.

My professor, now coach, told me I’d be doing the public-address events: informative, persuasive, impromptu and extemporaneous speaking. He was the public-address coach so I’d work primarily with him. The other coach, who oversaw the after-dinner speaking and oral-interpretation events (the dramatic and funny stuff), would listen to my speeches from time to time to offer her advice, he explained. I was told to go introduce myself.

So I did. Within seconds of entering her office my competitive nature kicked in. I didn’t like her. She was a three-time national finalist when she competed on the team. She’d gone straight from undergrad into her graduate program and one year later was now a full-fledged instructor. “Good for you,” I thought sarcastically. I found her annoyingly full of herself. After four years in the military, I had no time for pomposity.

Sometime during the conversation it came up that I was Catholic. Then she asked me if I had access to a VCR so I could watch tapes of other collegiate speakers in action. I told her I owned a VCR. “Oh,” she said. “So you’re Catholic and you own a VCR. You want to get married?” An irony I wouldn’t understand for many months to come.

The words that came out of my mouth were “No, thank you.” The words in my head were, “No, thank you, you self-centered loudmouth!” Her name was Penny Geurink.

So it began. I joined the team and for the next eight months every other Thursday, two coaches and 13 students would cram into a university van and drive into the night to compete. We’d spend all day Friday and most of Saturday competing. Then we’d jam back into the van and head back to Cedar Falls – usually arriving in the early hours Sunday morning. I got to know my teammates and coaches better than I ever planned or wanted.

In late February, after six months of travel, I came to the realization that Penny really did know what she was talking about. And over time I discovered her irritating bravado was simply a defense mechanism. She wasn’t nearly as self-assured as she proclaimed to be. She was tender-hearted and vulnerable and didn’t like to admit it. Over time, we both came to the realization we had much more in common than we originally thought. 

We started dating on the down-low, because even though I was a year older than her, we knew it could be a problem for her if people knew she was in a relationship with one of the students on the team.

In April, the season was coming to an end. The team was in East Orange, New Jersey, for the National Forensic Association national tournament, the third and final national tournament of the season. This was the big one -- the largest of the three national tournaments. Hundreds of the best collegiate speakers in the United States were there to see who was the best of the best.

We’d flown in on Wednesday and had competed all day Thursday and Friday. Just before we left the campus of Upsala College Friday night, I learned I’d made the semi-finals of informative and persuasive speaking. I’d compete the next morning for a chance at the national finals. My stress level was high.

Penny and I got into a huge fight after dinner. While the subject of the brouhaha is long forgotten, I’ll never forget what happened next.

We went for a walk in the hotel parking lot and made up. As I was escorting her back to her room something inside my brain snapped. I felt my pulse quicken. All I could hear in my ears was a whooshing sound. I felt like I was drowning. Panic was taking over. Some would later say I’d lost my mind. I suddenly felt like the world would come to a cataclysmic end if I didn’t voice my desperate query. I felt like a man holding onto the cliff edge with his finger tips.  

She opened the hotel-room door. Her roommates were asleep so I ushered her into the bathroom. As she took a seat on the countertop I mustered my courage and blurted, “Listen, I don’t want an answer right now, but I need to ask this. Penny, will you marry me?”

With that I gave her a quick kiss goodnight, asked her to wait to give me an answer until the next afternoon and hustled out the door, afraid of what I might hear if I lingered.

The next day was a blur of activity. I was off to compete while Penny was busy judging. It was an extremely windy April day in New Jersey. The announcements came out at about 3 p.m.

Our head coach had a list of who was moving on to the final round of their respective events. We gathered on the sidewalk. He had to yell to be heard above the wind. Two from our team made the finals. I was shocked to learn I was one of them.

There were hugs and high-fives all around. Penny hugged me and told me congratulations. Time seemed to stand still. The sun seemed to shine a little brighter. Every nerve in my body seemed to tingle. Yet again, all I could hear was a whooshing sound in my ears.

The wind picked up as I turned to walk to the building where finals would take place. Behind me, Penny said, “The answer is yes!” She thought I heard her.

I didn’t. It wasn’t until the awards ceremony a few hours later that she asked why I wasn’t more excited. Only then did I learn that my proposal had been accepted. I was getting married! Time stopped again as she hugged me on the floor of the college auditorium.

That moment marked the end of a crazy season of competition – but more importantly it signaled the beginning of a whole new journey.

Yes, I proposed in a bathroom at the Red Roof Inn in Whippany, New Jersey. But more importantly, something really special came from travelling down a road I didn’t want to take. And 27 years later, Penny and I are still enjoying the journey.

It’s been a great trip. And I thank God for setting up the detour that started it all.

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