Bruce & Rose Albertini
It was a hot summer afternoon in July and my friend and myself, both college students at Bloomsburg, were headed to our downtown apartment to deliver an air conditioner. Since we were juniors at Bloom, we were finally allowed to live off campus. My friend was driving and I was in the passenger seat.
As we drove out of Shamokin and down the highway, we passed through Weigh Scales at about 55 mph, never really noticing the two girls standing on the side of the road up ahead, thumbs out, hitching a ride. My friend didn't seem to even notice them and never slowed down.
I saw them at the last second, just as we were about to speed past them and suddenly something inside me caused me to yell out, "Stop the Car!" Maybe it was that last second look out the window where I caught a glimpse of a cute blonde, or maybe it was something else that made me yell out. Either way, that moment turned out to be a pivotal moment in my life.
My future wife, Rose, and her friend, Kathy, were trying to get a ride to Knoebels to escape the heat of a hot summer day and to spend a few hours walking around under the cool shade of the trees. We picked the two of them up and took them to the grove, never expecting to see either of them again.
A few days later, as I was driving through town, I just happened to see her in a car with a few friends. I waved at her and she waved back. She remembered me, I thought. Great! The next day I saw her again, sitting on the front porch of a house; so I stopped to say hi. It turned out to be her house. I soon found out, however, that there was a small problem. She wasn't that much interested in me - she wanted to go out with my friend. I made sure that never happened.
I started to stop by her house just about every day when I'd see her on her porch. I admit I would circle around her house a few hundred times until I'd see her coming out, the I'd pull up making believe I was just passing by.
Soon after that, we began dating and a year and a half later, I proposed while we were sitting in my old Mustang outside of Crown Lanes. It was raining hard and very muddy outside and as I pulled out the ring and asked her to be my wife, I told her that if it wasn't so muddy out, I would have gotten down on one knee.
On that miserable, cold rainy night, our journey together through life began and now, just a few months shy of our 35th wedding anniversary, I think of how different my life would be if the person in front of my friend's car on that hot, July day would have stopped and picked up those two girls before we did, or maybe I just wasn't looking out the window at that exact moment and passed by without ever seeing them.
It's impossible for me now to even imagine my life without my wife by my side. We have three great kids, Jessica, Bryan and Jannelle, and two wonderful grandchildren, Brittany and Torin.
Our theme song throughout our marriage is a song by Tracy Byrd, called "Keeper of the Stars." It tells the story of two people God had always planned would spend their life together, although they never knew it. The words go like this: "It was no accident, me finding you, Someone had a hand it in; long before we ever knew."
Since then, our life has been one adventure after another, from spending three weeks out West with two small kids sleeping in a van and on the desert sand, with me almost ruining the vacation before it ever got started by getting the van stuck up on a rock, needing the help of several people to get us going again; to running for our lives after being caught in a lightning storm at the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire; to taking shelter behind a waterfall as we were once against caught in a thunderstorm at the top of a mountain while hiking in North Carolina.
Our secret to a lasting love affair - always think of your partner's feelings when making decisions or arguing - giving in sometimes, even when you think you're right, learning to compromise and always realizing how lucky we are to have each other and our family. We truly believe God had it all planned for us to meet in just the way it happened all those years ago.
As the chorus of our song goes - "I tip my hat to the keeper of the stars. He sure knew what he was doing, when He joined these two hearts. I hold everything, when I hold you in my arms. And I've got all I'll ever need, thanks to the keeper of the stars."
Bruce Albertini