The short walk Buzzy Jarvis took to meet Shirley Sandusky in 1969 was the start of a thus far 48-year journey that has included a 1936 Dodge, a bicycle and several planes and moving vans.
Buzzy was at a dance with his friend, Buddy, just before he started his freshman year at a community college in Columbia, Tenn., when he saw Shirley on the dance floor.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I just remember that I thought he was really cute and I liked his car.”
He says: “I just thought she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I just remember being excited just to say ‘I do’ and to start our life as Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis.”
He says: “I just remember thinking she’s mine for the rest of my life and just being so happy about that.”
My advice for a lasting marriage:
She says: “Put God first in your marriage and be faithful and respectful and just drop-dead in love with the person you’re going to marry. And also remember to laugh a lot, too.”
He says: “You definitely have to be in love. And you need to be committed to work through the hard times, because there will always be hard times, and you just need to trust in the Lord.”
"I had never seen her before that night," says Buzzy, recalling Shirley's big green eyes and short blond hair. "I told my friend that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen."
Buddy, Buzzy soon learned, was Shirley's neighbor. He called her to see if they could come over so Buzzy could meet her.
"She's just my size -- I'm not very tall -- and yeah, I was just real excited about getting to meet her," says Buzzy, who is 5-foot-5 to Shirley's 5 feet. "We went to the front door and she opened it and I thought, 'She's even cuter than I thought she was.'"
Buzzy asked her for a date, a double with his sister Betsy and Buddy.
"The next night he came over in his big, black 1936 Dodge. I thought he was so cute and funny. I liked his car, too," Shirley says.
They went to a drive-in movie, and when Buddy and Buzzy climbed out of the car to get snacks at the concession stand Shirley turned to Betsy.
"I asked her if Buzzy drinks because I didn't want to go out with a guy who drinks," Shirley says. "She said no, that he always drives his friends home who do drink. I just really liked that. He was the president of his senior class, and he just believes in doing everything right. He's very smart."
They were together every free moment after that. Buzzy picked Shirley up after school most days, and they went back to his house to roll newspapers for his delivery route.
"Then we would get on his bike, and just about every day a dog would chase us, and Buzzy would be protecting us from the dog," she says. "He would throw the paper over his head and I would just have to throw it to my right."
She proudly showed him the C in algebra she got on her report card six weeks after they started dating, but his reaction wasn't what she expected.
"He said, 'You will never make another C,'" she says. "I thought, 'Oh great, I knew it. I'm going to fail algebra.' But we started studying together every night, and he tutored me. For the first time ever I started making the honor roll."
Two years after they met, Buzzy's family was moving out of Columbia and he was preparing to go away to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville to finish his degree in engineering. He and Shirley weren't sure how they would continue their relationship.
"I worked at Kroger during the summer and he picked me up at work, and we went over to the tennis courts. I liked to play tennis -- and he had taught me how," she says. "We were just sitting beside the tennis courts and he said, 'Why don't we get married this summer?' I thought he was just kidding so I probably just giggled, and we didn't finish talking about it."
The next day, though, Buzzy made sure she understood that he was serious, and she said yes.
They exchanged their vows on July 16, 1971, at Highland Park Baptist Church in Columbia. They honeymooned in Nashville, Tenn., where they saw Three Dog Night in concert, before heading to Cookeville.
Shirley finished the few high school credits she lacked and worked in the campus bookstore with close friends who lived near them in the married student apartments.
Buzzy graduated with a degree in engineering in 1974 and they returned to Columbia, where he started a job with DuPont. Six months later, he took a job with Eastman Chemical in Batesville. That job led them to live for a time in Holland, Singapore and Argentina.
He and Shirley moved to Little Rock two years ago to be near their children -- Amy Skrivanos and Ben Jarvis -- and their four grandchildren. Buzzy does engineering consulting and also volunteers with Habitat for Humanity.
They have kept Buzzy's 1936 Dodge, using it for leisurely drives with friends and family and leading the occasional parade.
During their recent move, Shirley found some of the letters she and Buzzy exchanged before they married, and in one she found a particularly insightful sentiment from her 17-year-old self.
"As a teenager I wrote, 'Buzzy, in our future life that we plan to share together, let's venture the world in a strife to find peace and love for all. Let's pray together and stay together as long as life is. Time will tell, but we need kind hearts and gentle souls as well.'"
She and Buzzy have lived by those words.
"Shirley is still the love of my life," Buzzy says, "and I am so thankful for the life we have had and still have together."
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High Profile on 07/16/2017