Email from James King - 2003

No one can be sure

Why the stars shine above,

Why is the sky so blue,

Why do fools fall in love?

Is His hand shown in our fate,

 Does He look down on this place,

From His viewpoint up above,

Does He help the human race? 

.................James King 2003

I ask you to consider these facts. In 1959, I fell in love with a sophomore at Ada High School, Charlotte Cobb. At the time, my father was the minister at Asbury Methodist Church in Ada, and I was a senior in the Ada High School class of 1960. In the fall of 1960, I left Ada to attend Oklahoma City University on a full scholarship which paid tuition, books, room and board, and even had some spending money left.

I continued to date Charlotte. In May of 1961, my family moved from Ada to Geary, and although I had no car and no place to stay in Ada, I continued to date Charlotte. However, when I told her I had been called to the ministry, her parents (who had barely tolerated me because I was a preacher's kid) turned completely against me and insisted she date other boys. Within a year, she was married to someone else, I had flunked out of OCU, lost my scholarship, and joined the Air Force to avoid being drafted. Disillusioned by my fate, I lost interest in the ministry. The Air Force trained me to be an accounting clerk, something at which I found I was very good, and so I pursued a career in accounting when I got out of the service.

Eventually, I got married to a young lady from Geary who had a small child from her first marriage. In September 1973, we had a son. We named him Brian. In 1974, I finally received my Bachelor of Science of Accounting from OCU after attending night school for six and a half years while working full time and being married with a child and then children.

Jan and I got divorced in December 1989. At the time I was the controller for an "Oil Patch" manufacturing company which was located in OKC, but was a subsidiary of a company in Houston. About the same time as my divorce, the company announced they were closing the OKC plant and consolidating with the parent company's location in Houston. I was offered the opportunity to move to Houston. I did not wish to do so, because I had custody of my son, Brian, who was a junior at John Marshall High School and wanted to stay with his friends and graduate with them. I began searching for another job in OKC.

Two weeks before I would have been moved to Houston, I got a call from a company in Maysville, OK offering me a job for which I had interviewed several months earlier. I took it, even though it meant a 55 mile commute each way every day.

On May 2, 1990, one of the people I worked with asked me ifl was the James King who used to go to Ada High School and dated a Charlotte Cobb back then. When I answered yes, he told me his mother worked with Charlotte in Pauls Valley, just 19 miles down the road. He also told me Charlotte had gotten a divorce in November 1989, and was interested in seeing me again. I contacted her that evening.

Three weeks later, on May 23, I asked her to marry me. We got married on July 28, 1990. She has a son named Bryan who was also born in September, but a year earlier than my son. Her first husband told her he wanted a divorce within days of their anniversary. My first wife told me she wanted a divorce on our anniversary. Since she told me that early that morning, needless to say, I did not give her an anniversary present.

Charlotte and I celebrate three anniversaries each year, the anniversary of the day we got back together, the anniversary of the day we got engaged, and our wedding anniversary. Charlotte collects turtles, and I nearly always buy her a turtle something for each anniversary. This year, on our first l2th anniversary, May 2, I had not bought her a turtle yet, planning to do so on my lunch hour.

I work for the state in the Jim Thorpe building, across the street from the Capitol. That morning, I needed to go over to the Capitol to deliver something to the Treasurer's office. On the way back across Lincoln Blvd, laying there in the middle of the street was a toy turtle. It looked brand new, not a scratch on it. How it got there, I have no idea, but I had an anniversary present.

Coincidences?  Believe what you will, but I believe someone had His hand in it. If Charlotte and I had gotten married out of high school, the marriage would not have succeeded, because I was too immature to understand what made a marriage work. Today, Charlotte and I have a love much deeper than I would have ever believed could happen if I had not experienced it.

I started this with a poem. I never thought I could write poetry. However, when I started dating Charlotte again, my brother said something to me that caused me to try my hand at it. He said every woman loves to receive poetry, no matter how corny, because it is written for her, and if l couldn't write anything else, I could always start out Roses are Red, the Sky is Blue, and finish the last two lines with my own words. I've done that many times, but I've also written some pretty good stuff. Almost all of it is reserved for Charlotte, but occasionally I share. I felt like sharing today, and giving some of my new friends a little insight into what keeps me going.

Clumps!