How does a Country Girl Meet a Sailor Guy?

     Well its Sunday July 11th its been 2 weeks since I kissed my Sailor Guy goodbye again and I swore that the next two months I would NOT complain that he isn't here with me.  Too many people around me, husbands gone to war, husbands passing away ...I know I am lucky I get to talk to him everyday, he spoils me mercilessly by calling me so often and sometimes more than once, if we have no cell service then we are so lucky the company has given the ships internet so we can chat on facebook, I don't get to here his comforting voice but at least I can smile from his humor. :)  So here I am not complaining but spending the day around the house vowing to be busy , my mistake I turn on my ITUNES and my favorite songs are songs that remind me of him and of course how much I miss him!

    So I think, how did this happen to me? Heck I was just an innocent Country Girl living in Chester Vermont minding my own business way back in the year 2000.  Yes, I was a recently divorced woman, my daughter still living at home so I kept our house and my business a Retail Store with a strong web based business attached to it. I sold horse equipment. Handy since we did indeed have horses and I spent the most wonderful times in my life in the barn with my daughter, going to horse shows or just riding the trails, even getting my son involved in the horseback riding too until the skateboard took over. :)  So since I did have a web based business I found it handy to have a chat program for customers to ask me questions about the products in the store or on my storefront web business.  It was here on ICQ that I innocently responded to a "Hi, How you doing"? from a message from someone called "BIG JOHN"  It was against my better judgement to respond but for some reason, I did.

     It was February 14, 2000 maybe I was feeling a bit out of sorts since I'm sure my daughter was out doing something valentiney ( is that a word?) My son away at college, my dearest friend at the time Rhonda was out at a gig with...egad Les??  ( another story in itself!)  So I responded to "BIG JOHN" only to find out really quickly that indeed he was NOT BIG JOHN but living at BIG JOHNS house so was using his ICQ account.  So I found out that this fellow was Anders...not Andre very quickly and when he said he was a Ship Captain I thought.......

Living in Vermont I really didn't have much experience with Ships, sure I grew up vacationing on weekends, holidays etc at my parents camp or on our own cabin Cruiser on Lake Champlain. That was a big lake and had big boats ....right?  He did his best to explain.  I found I was drawn to the computer and walked by it frequently to see if "Big Johns" name was on my "online" list of buddies. ( and it was like "Hey, You've got mail, in so many ways)  He told me that he'd be going back to work in April , I thought..what he isn't working now??  Who doesn't work for 3 months??  Then he asked me for my address so that he could write me while he was away. I thought ...what are you crazy?? No way I'm giving a complete stranger my address..no no no!  But yet I still caught myself looking for him online.  We laughed and talked for hours and a week or so later I said " So, you still want my address? " Nope , I didn't want to loose track of this man , who made me laugh so hard I'd cry and gave me goose bumps sometimes too and just from his words.  I think it was a few days later that he asked for my phone number. Oh yeah a BIG HUGE knot formed in my stomach.  How can I do this? I was scared, I was excited, my heart was pounding out of my chest when I typed the numbers and waited for what seemed like hours to push the send button...... then RING.....do I answer it??? YIKES....its ringing, he is typing.. "Answer the phone!"  So I pick up the phone, its a hand held job and my hand must of been sweaty because I dropped it, and when it fell on the floor the battery broke out...HA!  So yep it disconnected and as I"m explaining online, I get it back in and it starts ringing again.  This time its in my hand already and I pressed..."TALK" and oh man did we ever!  He had the most amazing voice, deep and smooth, with an accent that I had never heard in Vermont!  We laughed oh did we laugh!  We were on the phone for 5 hours maybe more and this continued for a couple weeks.  He had a birthday coming in March and I don't remember how that all came about but he surprised me by saying he was coming out to see me on his birthday!  

Now most people would say, How could you let a Man you don't even know come to your home after only talking to him online or on the phone for a month?  I don't know how I knew, but I knew , and on March 14, 2000 Anders Rasmussen arrived at my door and my life has never been the same since. :o)  

We were married on August 11, 2001 with me making crazy trips out to visit him on his ship ( anther story itself that can be found here on my website : www.mrscaptainsplace.com . Funny I started the site as a joke since I had a business , I had a website so I did some art work on a photo of his Ship and wrote the "COOLBEANS" on the hull . Little did I know what I started.... :o) 

We moved to Canada in 2004 finding a wonderful home on Lake Erie right down the road from the plant in Nanticoke where his ship docks quite frequently.  It was a wonderful experience living there and I made so many wonderful friends but I did miss my "Vermont" its mountains and most of all my children. So when I asked "Honey, do you think when you retire we could move back to Vermont?"  My wonderful husband didn't even bat an eyelash he just said "why wait?" and thats what we did....I'm so lucky...I'm so blessed...I'm so in Love...

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