Somewhere in the back of my mind way back then, I knew that there are intolerant and bigoted people out there. Yet, I have been fortunate to not have to deal with any of them until the one time I did.
Annie and I loved to take long walks along nature trails. Never in a hurry, we held hands and meandered wherever the trails went, enjoying the solitude and quiet that nature can provide. There were times we would spend a half-day just wandering around waiting to see what would be around the next bend in the trail. We never saw anyone we knew on these walks and encountered few others since we usually took these hikes during the week when the trails were less crowded.
One time we enjoyed the forest outside one of our favorite cities and when the hike was over, we headed over to the parking lot where we had left our car. While walking across the parking lot, I heard someone call out my name. I turned around to see one of my friends, Jan, waving at me. She was with some other people and was heading toward us. My shields went up immediately as I had told my friends that I was in a relationship, yet I never introduced Annie to any of my friends in concern for her safety and now I was confronted with that possibility with no place to turn to.
I introduced Annie to Jan and her husband Ron and they introduced the people they were with. I don’t have any recollection of their names at all. I go back a long way with Jan and Ron as we were friends since high school. They seemed overjoyed to meet Annie and I started to feel a little better.
The other guy however, spent a lot of time staring at Annie and started whispering to the woman he was with. She gave him the look that said shut up and elbowed him in the ribs. He didn’t take it well. He wasn’t a big guy, about my size, but the woman he was with was larger than either of us. I could see a problem coming, so I decided it was time for us to leave and as we were saying our goodbyes he started in with the comments about Annie. I thought, well, here we go, the one thing I feared the most. Time to bring out my football moves from years ago. As I turned to walk towards him, Annie wouldn’t let me go, Jan said don’t, stepped in between us, and the woman he was with yelled at him to knock it off.
He then started in on me, asking what kind of man was I to be with Annie? Before I could make any effort at a response, the woman he was with turned and slammed him with a roundhouse like I had never seen. He went down like a ton of bricks and was out for the count. She turned to us, apologized and said don’t worry, this is nothing compared to what he will get when he wakes up. I thanked her because I couldn’t think of anything else to do or say.
Jan and Annie were crying hysterically and Annie gave her a big hug, and we left promising to meet her and Ron that night for drinks.
That was the first time I experienced first hand what I dreaded so much and had heard so many stories about from Annie and Ellen. I told her we had to speed up our plans to move to Canada because I couldn’t live in this country any more. Her safety was the most important thing to me and I just could not deal with her having to live with this the rest of her life.
Surprises in The Road of Life 