Hay Bales to Highways Chapter 3

Time for the next installment of Our story. First of all, read the rest of the story here if you haven't already...

...I'll never forget the first time we met. It was the first week of my freshman year at Cedarville and let me tell you, Cedarville was a strange new land. There were strange things like "ring downs," strange nicknames for all buildings such as, "the hive" and "chucks" and weird organized activities like Brother-Sister events. I suppose brother-sister outings were developed to foster relationships between the sexes since we lived in separate dorms. This new "culture" was very odd to me but hungry for friends and fun I tagged along with my girls, Rachel, Patty Lynn and Diane and met "the brothers."

My friend Diane was absolutely in love with a boy named Michael who was cute in the traditional preppy way but also an attention hog. Upon seeing all the "sisters" he dropped on the ground in some strange crying/whining routine and I couldn't believe Diane didn't have enough sense to NOT like him. You see, even though she didn't have a lot of sense about boys at the time, Diane had an older sister at school and was therefore, a great source of information. And Diane, her sister and sister's friends all sang in a choir at a local church directed by S and she had told me all about how AMAZING he was and that he was dating this girl but that, "it would never last." So, as you've guessed by now, S was one of my new "brothers" and was friends with Michael the shrieking moron on the ground and when S told him to stop being annoying and to get up--I knew I was going to have to like him...

(By the way, I MUST mention that Michael is no longer a shrieking moron; he has a beautiful wife and precious baby girls and is a respectable, wonderful person).

...And, like him I did. I joined his choir with Diane and stayed through the long Sunday afternoons (it was just far enough away that we didn't drive back to dorms between Sunday morning and Sunday night services) with my new musical friends. I went to church there for a year, singing in the contatas and the choir every Sunday and I'm pretty sure I even played piano a few times.

We had so much fun those Sunday afternoons--there was the time that Michael folded himself up and took a nap in a baby crib, there were the times we played games all afternoon, we always ate lunch together--it was really wonderful. The only things that wasn't so wonderful was the fact that S spent nearly my entire freshman year dating the girl with whom Diane said it would never last. Well, last it did and she and her friends were there every Sunday afternoon with us--or on particularly devestating days S would go out to lunch with her instead of eating with us....those were the longggg afternoons.

Eventually I got a little annoyed going to a church so far away since my friends didn't want to attend there any more and started going to church with them and my NEW crush whose name isn't worth mentioning but who stole my interest away from S for a while.

It wasn't until the end of my Sophomore year that life started changing and my eyes drifted back to my Mr. Wonderful and his eyes drifted towards me....