Mending a leaky toilet can be done with the right tools. Fixing broken hearts can only be accomplished by the right people.
Kelly Bradley was done with men in 2012.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I thought he was a kind man. I don’t even remember walking up to him because I had my mind on the bird feeder.”
He says: “I thought, ‘Well, here’s a helpless gal who can’t even fix a bird feeder.’”
On our wedding day:
She says: “There had been a storm the night before and the computers [at the courthouse] were down so we had to wait an hour or two. I was afraid something was going to go wrong and we wouldn’t be able to get married that day.”
He says: “I was excited …. We were leaving to go see her friends after we got married. I was just excited about getting on with my life.”
My advice for a satisfying marriage:
She says: “Pick someone who has the same core values as you, the things that really matter to you.”
He says: “Have patience and be understanding. There is no perfect marriage — there is no perfect situation. You work through situations.”
"I had just gotten to a point where I had decided I wasn't going to date anymore," she says. "I was tired of trying. Nothing ever worked out. I prayed one night and I just asked God to either take the desire to have someone out of my heart or to bring someone to me because obviously I was not doing it right."
But then the squirrels chewed through a rope that held her bird feeder, and she went to the hardware store to see if someone could help replace it with wire.
She had lived in the East End area of Saline County for six years and had gone into the hardware store there numerous times before that day, May 25, 2012 -- her birthday. She knew several of the people who worked there, but she hadn't yet met Rick Rowland, who was standing at the counter.
"He said, 'Well, let me see the bird feeder,' so I gave it to him and he turned around and went over to another little area and he took that whole bird feeder apart and put it back together and put a wire on it and he charged me $2.38," she says.
This was nothing out of the ordinary for Rick. He often gave customers advice and even went to their homes after work to help fix things they couldn't manage.
He, too, had sworn off relationships.
"I had decided I could live by myself. I was through with women. I could make it on my own," he says.
He thought Kelly was helpless and offered his normal assistance. She thought he was a nice guy, but nothing more.
Shortly after that, she received an unusually high water bill and realized she had two leaky toilets. She resolved to repair them on her own -- mostly.
"I was still in this mode of 'I am woman, hear me roar, I am not going to have a man' .... I thought 'I'm going to figure out how to fix this myself,'" she says. "I thought, 'I'm going to go down to the hardware store and find that guy who was so nice and he'll tell me how to do it.'"
She took pictures of the leaks and Rick was indeed ready with some how-to information. But by her sixth trip to the store, he had some bad news about her repair attempts.
"He said, 'Now you need a plumber,'" Kelly says.
Lucky for her, Rick is a plumber -- as well as a locksmith, a woodworker and a general handyman -- and he offered to come to fix what she had messed up. Kelly was grateful but hesitant.
"Everyone there at the hardware store knew him, and they heard him say he was coming over to my house so [I thought] 'Surely he won't do anything,'" she says. "He seemed nice, but all those things go through your mind."
She had a hunch he would refuse a cash payment for his labor, so she made him a cake. It was in a canister, and she told him she would drop by to pick up the container the following Saturday. But she ended up dropping by a day early, on her way to meet friends for lunch.
Rick wasn't expecting her and didn't have the canister, but he promised to have it with him the next day. He told her he had considered inviting her to have some of the cake with him and his friends, but that he didn't have her number.
"I thought, 'Great. He's going to ask me out.' And I didn't want him to because I wasn't going to date anymore," she says.
When she went back the next day, he did ask her out -- in front of all of his co-workers, no less.
Rick was surprised to hear the invitation come out of his mouth.
Kelly didn't have the heart to say no, so she agreed to go to his house for coffee and conversation.
"He sat in his La-Z-Boy and I sat on the couch and we talked for four hours," she says.
That was the beginning of a yearlong courtship and the realization that they were meant for each other.
Rick proposed a year to the day they met in the hardware store. "At our age, we decided 'Why wait?'" says Kelly, 56. Rick is 65. They exchanged vows less than a week later at the Saline County Courthouse.
Rick fixes things that break around their house right away these days, before Kelly gets a chance to tackle them. But they have learned that not only are their personalities complementary, their hobbies are, too.
"He does woodworking," she says. "I cross-stitch, and he frames my stuff."
Indeed, she met her plumber and her soul mate at the same time.
"I quit dating, but then I met him right after that," she says. "To me, it was like God did that."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 425-7228 or email:
kdishongh@sbcglobal.net
High Profile on 06/11/2017