Disclaimer; This is my version of how we met, written in 2005. Dave has also written one, it's 1/4 the length of mine (go figure!) and not exactly the same recall. #YouSayTomato
It was just another day at work in April 1996. I had only been in the bay area for 6 months and most of that time I was working very long hours on a new job. I had reached a point that I was ready to start getting to know people and making friends. I was listening to the radio when JD the afternoon DJ made the announcement that he had a man on the phone who was looking for a date for the upcoming Vince Gill concert. “I have Dave, he is dateless, he is desperate.” He said that if there was a woman who was available and wanted to go to the concert, to call in. I didn’t hesitate and called the radio station. When JD answered the phone he asked me my name I thought “this should be fun…” The next thing I knew, JD had Dave and I on the phone doing an interview, “So, what do you think?….and what about you? Do you want to go to the concert?” He even went as far as to ask what do you look like, and who do people say you look like…..it was really fun. We swapped numbers off the air and Dave called me. After talking for just a few minutes I got the strong sense that he was looking for a relationship and I knew I was still just breaking up with a man in LA. I made my feelings known and Dave was great, he said he didn’t have any expectations and just thought we should go to the concert and have fun.
I met Dave at the Game Gallery where he worked and I will never forget the moment I walked through the door. Dave was walking toward me, full western look with this long hair with these beautiful blonde ringlet curls under a western hat. The look on his face the first time he saw me was priceless. There was not a doubt in my find that he found me attractive and was smitten. I tease him today that he loved me the moment he laid his eyes on me, but he denies it. We went to the concert together and had such an easy time talking, but I still had concerns that he had expectations. I remember talking about meeting on the radio and Dave saying he thought JD was going to arrange a dating game scenario. I had to laugh and said, “Well, it looks like you didn’t get to pick, you just got me.” He went on to tell me the questions he had arranged to ask the women he never got to interview. We only got through 2 of the 3 questions but they told me so much about him. The first question was “I am learning to country dance if you were to teach me, what dance would you teach me and why?” I think I answered him that I would teach him to cha-cha. I answered that way because I think the country couples dances are so romantic and the cha-cha is so pretty to watch. The next question was “What song would you say describes you or how you feel right now?” I was stumped, feeling on the spot, my mind went blank. Dave piped in that his song was Someone Else’s Star by Bryan White. We got to the concert and had a good time. Afterward, he took me back to my car and I offered my hand, for shaking. I awkwardly brought up the point about me not being in a place to start a relationship but I would love to be friends. He was a total gentleman, smiled and told me to drive home safely.
The next day at work a deliveryman arrived with a huge bouquet of flowers. I told him that he must be mistaken, the flowers were so big I thought they belonged in the lobby of the hi-rise I worked in. He said, are you Kathleen Patrick? I said yes and he told me they were for me. I saw the card and they were from Dave. I was livid mad!! I couldn’t contain my emotion and the people in my office were in shock. Here I was holding flowers so big you couldn’t even see me, but you could hear that I was not happy. When I finally was able to express myself I said, “Now I have to have this talk with him all over again! Didn’t he hear me say just friends?” I immediately called and thanked him for the flowers but before he could even respond, I started right in on him, “I thought you understood that I just want to be friends, I thought you got that I am not looking for a relationship…blah, blah, blah” Poor Dave, I don’t even know why it is that we are the great friends that we are except to say that we have always been true to ourselves and each other. We have never had to pretend to be anyone we are not.
The next time Dave called he invited me to go to a George Strait concert. I said no and again, he got real and said, “Come on Kathy, I know where you stand and how you feel, let’s just go, it will be fun.” I agreed to go only if he would let me buy my own ticket and while he agreed, he would not take my money. While we were at the concert, he introduced me to a friend of his, Barry. Oh no!! Sparks flew between the two of us and needless to say, this created some tension. Barry and I ended up talking on the phone and where I didn’t make time to meet Dave and go dancing, I was now meeting Barry for a drink and a dance. As fate would have it, Dave was there as well and was not happy and frankly, his feelings were hurt. The next day Dave called me at work and let me know that I had hurt his feelings. I sat down and wrote Dave a very sincere letter letting him know that the time was not right for us.The thing with Barry was simply that, a thing. I didn’t’ see a future with Barry but I saw him in my life forever. With that fax (Yes! I faxed him the letter!) our friendship and our life began.
So here we are, Flower and me. Oh, yeah, I call Dave Flower. I know, it is a bit unconventional but it wasn’t picked, it was just was meant to be. You see, when Dave sent me the flowers and I became so angry, that made quite an impact on my family and friends. They thought I was crazy because I was probably the only woman in this lifetime to get angry with a man for giving her flowers, this became a defining moment in my life. My friends didn’t know any of the new people in my life so I always had to explain who I was doing things with. Since Dave and I were dancing and talking often I started to refer to him as “Dave, you know, Dave, the guy who sent me the flowers.” This went to just Flower Dave and then simply to Flower. Initially, this was not something Dave knew about and I didn’t really intend for him to know and how could I know it would stick? The next thing I knew, Flower came to the Grand Poobah and while I was attempting to set him up with my best friend Jules (because I thought they would be great together!) she blurted out, “Oh! You’re Flower Dave!” So now he knew that his nickname was Flower, and he was not interested in Julie, nor was she interested in him. We all know how this worked out, as it was supposed to be. That was 22 years ago and we've been blissfully married for almost 17 of those years.
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