Sometimes love takes guts

Steve Callihan never forgot Mozelle Maness. Her smile. Her laugh. Her sizzling energy.

They dated a bit in high school, but Maness was a social butterfly, and Callihan was shy. He and a couple of buddies would get together and buy flowers. Then, under the cover of night, they’d deliver them to the doorsteps of the girls they liked best.

“We’d bang on the door and run away,” he recalled. “No note or anything.”

His flowers were always for Mozelle.

Thirty-five years ago Maness moved away, and Callihan’s life moved on. He worked hard, married, raised two sons, divorced, but still he thought of Mozelle. One day last November, in the lunchroom at work, he overheard his boss’s wife talking about friendship. She mentioned her best friend in high school had been Mozelle Maness. Then she pointed to Callihan and said, “In fact, Steve dated her.”

He nodded and said he’d wondered what happened to her. “She always interested me,” he said.

That was all it took. Resa Hunt made it her personal mission to find Maness.

A short time later, Callihan had her unlisted cell phone number in his hands. He said Tim Hunt, his boss at Huntwood Custom Cabinets, asked, “You got the guts to call her?” Callihan grinned. “I said, ‘I got the guts.’ ”

He went out to the parking lot and placed the call from his truck.

Maness was living in a snow-shrouded log cabin in Cle Elum, Wash. When she checked her messages and heard the voice from her past she said, “I was so surprised!”

She returned his call, and they chatted briefly. Callihan said he’d like to meet her for lunch. The weather had been foul and the roads so bad that Maness assumed he must already be in town.

“Do you have business in Cle Elum?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “Lunch with you.”

He made the 190-mile drive through a bitter winter snowstorm. While he was on the road his cell phone rang. It was his son wondering why he hadn’t been at church that morning.

“I’m on my way to Cle Elum to see an old girlfriend,” Callihan said.

There was silence at the other end of the line. Then his son said, “Is she hot?”

Callihan laughed. He said his sons had hoped he’d remarry but had given up.

“They said I’m too much of a caveman.”

He watched her pull into the restaurant parking lot, and though it had been 35 years since he’d seen her, he said, “I knew her face. I knew her smile.”

He’d brought a dozen long-stemmed roses with him. No more leaving them on her doorstep. This time he got to see her eyes when he placed them in her arms.

They ate lunch and caught up. Maness had also been divorced for many years. She talked about her custom window covering business and her friends and family. He talked about his work and his two grown sons and two grandsons. Before they knew it, three hours had passed.

“It seemed to go well right from the first hello,” Callihan said.

Maness was impressed with the man her shy suitor had become.

“He was so skinny and quiet in high school,” she said.

She enjoyed his confidence and his sense of humor. “He makes me laugh so hard I have to tell him, ‘Stop! My stomach hurts!’ ”

They began a long-distance courtship. On Valentine’s Day, Callihan took Maness to their old stomping grounds at Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church. That’s where they’d met and hung out.

The church was locked, so in the freezing cold, just outside the doorway where the teenagers used to gather, Callihan proposed. When Maness said yes, he slipped a yellow gold, diamond and ruby ring on her finger.

They married April 15 and hosted a country picnic reception for friends and extended family on July 5.

It can be challenging for two longtime singles to share a home and make a life together. Combining two tastes in interior decorating presented a hurdle.

“I’ve been alone in my rut,” Callihan said. “Then someone comes along and says, ‘The horseshoes and saddle blanket have to go.’ ”

Besides home furnishings, they’ve been working on his wardrobe. Wide-eyed, he said, “She told me real men can wear things besides jeans and cowboy boots. I’m still struggling with that.”

They both laughed and Callihan admitted, “We’re doing OK around the house – making it less cavelike.”

His bride smiled across the table at him. “He’s blossomed like fine wine since high school.”

She’s looking forward to showing Callihan more of the world.

“He hasn’t been anywhere, so everything is new to him. He just worked hard for so many years.”

She said after that first lunch she asked him, “What if you traveled all that way to see me in Cle Elum and I was fat and ugly?” His response was telling. “Then I would have had a nice lunch with an old friend.”

Sometimes taking a risk, making a phone call or taking a drive through snowy roads can pay off in unexpected ways. At least it did for this couple. As Mozelle Callihan said, “No guts, no glory.”