In all of the super hero movies there is an origin story that explains where our heroes got their super powers and why. I wouldn’t be who I am without what happened to me in Randall’s (now Coborn’s) then located in the north mall where the Dollar Store is now just down the hall from the storage facility, back in the late summer of 1987. I’ve told parts of this story before, but it is time for Valentine’s, and this is as romantic as I get and so along with what you’ve heard before here is the untold portion; “The Rest of the Story” as Paul Harvey used to say.

Mathematicians calculated in Science Tech, as reported by the Daily Mail, that your odds of finding “The One” on any given day is 1 in 562. You can increase those odds by 17 percent with online dating, 16 percent by going out after work and mingling in a social setting as well as by 15 percent through socializing at the gym. The mathematicians found that being set up by friends or family worked just 1 percent of the time. The most popular place to meet a future spouse is at school, 17%, followed by work at 13%. Then there are social gatherings – the bar, a party or a concert – where 11% of the people meet their future forevers. Just 6% of people meet their prospective partner through a chance encounter of some kind.

I saw her in the grocery store; she had big 80’s hair and was wearing a red T-shirt with gray short shorts that showed her long legs to great advantage. She had her back to me as I was in the next line taking in her gorgeousness, unbeknownst to her. It was like being hit by a bolt of lightning; she took my breath away.

The clerk apparently knew her and asked her about her college studies. She said, “After six years I’m almost done, just one semester to go.” That’s too bad; what a beautiful chassis but not much under the hood, I thought. We paid for our purchases and went our separate ways without formally meeting, speaking or even nodding to each other. More on that to come, but first…

According to the US Census Bureau, your chance of getting married before the age of 40 is 86 percent for women and 81 percent for men. In 1962, 50 percent of 21 year olds and 90 percent of the 30 year olds were married. Today’s figures are 8.5 percent for people at age 21 and 53 percent for those who are 30. In 2023, the average age at which men got married was 30.2 and for women it was 28.4 years.

The old rhyme goes, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.” Valentine’s Day is the most popular day for engagements in the United States followed by the Saturday before Christmas, next in popularity is Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Day and rounding out the top five most popular days to get engaged is on the birthday of the bride to be. Most couples are together for two years before considering marriage and the average engagement is between a year and eighteen months.

The Cornell Marriage Project interviewed 700 people married only once for a lifetime who have a combined total of 40,000 years of matrimony between them on what makes for a long happy marriage. Those couples said, “Don’t settle for just anyone because you’re afraid you’ll end up unmarried, cultivate good communication, prioritize your partner’s needs even before the children’s, don’t fight when you’re hungry, be willing to change, take care of yourself and treat marriage like a long term commitment.”

Now, back to my story, imagine my surprise when the grocery store coed showed up across the hall as Jerry Opbroek’s student teacher on the following Monday. I made a politically incorrect but sincere comment, “Has anyone seen the babe student teacher across the hall?” A shy girl named Cheryl raised her hand and when I called on her, she said, “That’s my sister. You should go out with her.” I laughed and said, “No.”

Outside of class, Cheryl was outgoing and gregarious with a lot of friends who had a lot of friends themselves. The jungle drums began at the high school. Kids started coming up to me and asking, “Mr. Olson, when are you going to ask the ‘babe student teacher’ out?” By Thursday afternoon of the week I made my unfortunate but true observation, it seemed like every kid in the school was asking me when I was going to ask the babe student teacher out.

So, to quiet the mob and stop the rumors, Friday morning before school I walked across the hall from my room, MHS 200, to Opbroek’s room 201 and introduced myself to the babe student teacher. She said, “Oh yes, I know who you are.” I thought I was sunk at that point. She introduced herself as Julie Sieler. It was my turn to say, “Oh yes, I know who you are!” Then I said, “You wouldn’t want to go out to dinner – or something – with me tomorrow, would you?” I caught the eye of Chad Vermeulen, the only student in the room prior to kids filing in for first period. He raised his eyebrows and gave me a slight shake of the head in a nonverbal critique of my approach. The babe student teacher said, “Yes, I would love to go out with you.” Chad smiled and gave me a discreet thumbs up acknowledging the male fraternity that existed between us and his silent congratulations on the surprisingly successful result of my feeble attempt to be charming.

The first date was wonderful and involved dinner and dancing. As we sat afterwards in my car talking, the Sieler family cat, Doc, jumped onto the windshield scaring the daylights out of me and causing me to bruise my knees on the steering wheel. I was always convinced that my then future father-in-law Tony, trained the cat to do that to break up any “shenanigans” that might be going on in parked cars with any of his four daughters in front of his house. At the conclusion of the date, as we lingered on her doorstep, I was unsure if I should try for a good night kiss or not, but Julie beat me to it. That was delightful too. It turns out that Julie’s long college career was due to getting a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in biology as well as a stint working at the Federal Fish Hatchery in Yankton during her graduate research.

When it came time to meet the whole family officially all together at a dinner around the table I was subjected to the “taco test”. When my sister-in-law Loretta was given the test, she failed and went hungry the entire meal. I found that information out later, after my trial by food. The “taco test” involved the fixings for tacos – meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, taco shells etc. – on plates to be passed around the table for supper. The in-law to be sat politely as the plates went first one way and then the other but never to the in-law to be. In Loretta’s case, she just sat and stared as the sumptuous ingredients neared but never got to her. I passed the taco test because as soon as I realized what was happening, I stood up reaching across the table and started grabbing fixings for my taco meal. I passed the test and was welcomed with good humor and open arms into the Sieler clan.

Julie and I met formally in October of 1987. We were engaged on December 15, 1987 and married on July 30, 1988. The nearly four decades we’ve been together as a couple have been the happiest, most fulfilling years of my life. Julie is a nationally recognized science teacher who has traveled the world sharing her expertise and curriculum knowledge with science educators from other countries as well as with fellow teachers across the United States. I’m tremendously proud of her and still a little befuddled as to why she chose to spend her life with me, although I’m enormously grateful she has. By the way, Julie still has that red t-shirt and grey short shorts. They still fit and she looks just as good wearing them now as she did then.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your Special Someone!