{"id":23880,"date":"2016-02-25T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T08:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23880"},"modified":"2016-02-25T00:01:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T08:01:15","slug":"leap-year-1976-the-day-i-popped-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/leap-year-1976-the-day-i-popped-the-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Leap Year 1976 — The Day I Popped the Question"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"march<\/a>
He said yes. And so did she. Photo Peter Luers Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2016 is a Leap Year, and February 29, Leap Day,\u00a0is coming up on\u00a0Monday. That means\u00a0Jon and I will be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the day I proposed marriage. (Or the tenth anniversary, depending on how you calculate it.) Here’s how it happened:<\/em><\/p>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall,\u00a0<\/em>The Oakland Tribune, May 31, 1987<\/em><\/p>\n

Things were getting serious. My boyfriend had moved his goldfish into my apartment.<\/p>\n

I returned from a long weekend with my parents to find that Jon had moved his dime store pets from his place on Telegraph Hill into mine on Russian Hill.<\/p>\n

He was sheepish about having done this; he knew that I would object.<\/p>\n

I had my reasons. Jon and I had had a perfectly viable relationship\u00a0up until then. We had fair fights. We shared the housework. We divided expenses – restaurant tabs and grocery bills – right down the middle.<\/p>\n

We liked each other’s friends. And, although Jon did not like Ingmar Bergman and I was not keen on baseball, we stayed calm about these differences and took turns picking out our weekend activities.<\/p>\n

Above all, Jon and I were honest with each other. Right down to admitting it when one of us went out with someone else – something that Jon did often in the early days of our relationship, now in its fifth year.<\/p>\n

I should have seen the goldfish coming.<\/p>\n

Romance a la Jon Newhall<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Jon had begun eating more and more of his meals at my place, doing more and more of the dishes, showing more and more disappointment if I opted for supper with a female co-worker instead of him.<\/p>\n

He was spending less time than ever at his own apartment, going there only every other day to feed the goldfish and water his rubber tree plant.<\/p>\n

But those short trips gave us both a firm sense of having our own lives, a fall-back position if something went wrong between us.<\/p>\n

For me, the trouble with letting the goldfish into my apartment was that I believed in marriage.<\/p>\n

As I saw it, if Jon wanted to enjoy the rights and pleasures of marriage (hanging a clean shirt in my closet, eating a cozy, home-cooked meal at my wobbly dinner table, acquired for a few dollars at Goodwill) without even the pretense of maintaining his own apartment, then he could darned well marry me.<\/p>\n

I made broad hints to that effect; Jon pretended not to hear.<\/p>\n

I allowed the goldfish to stay, but took a hard line where the rubber tree plant was concerned. Jon continued to stop off at his apartment once or twice a week to water it.<\/p>\n

Our relationship went along nicely, growing more viable by the day.<\/p>\n

Our finances soon became hopelessly entangled: I could no longer remember how much I had spent on groceries. Jon would forget to collect from me for my baseball ticket.<\/p>\n

But every now and then, dreary feelings caught up with me. I wanted to be married, but did I want to marry Jon? If I strong-armed him into proposing marriage, would I say yes?<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
Jon and Barbara in 1975, the year he didn’t pop the question. Photo by\u00a0Ruth Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, at the end of a drafty evening at Candlestick Park – I could have been home watching “War and Peace” on TV – I realized that I would go to that wretchedly cold game with Jon all over again. Furthermore, if I had my way, this was going to be my husband.<\/p>\n

Armed with that knowledge, I was ready to take action.<\/p>\n

My Leap Year Leap<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It was 1975. A leap year <\/a>was coming up. If Jon did not propose to me by midnight, Dec. 31, I would propose to him.<\/p>\n

It would be more romantic, of course, if he did the proposing. So, I left pictures of diamond rings lying around the apartment. I tried making deals, hinting that as soon as we got engaged, he could move his rubber tree plant in. To no avail.<\/p>\n

I threatened to end our relationship. He knew better.<\/p>\n

New Year’s Eve came and went. I granted Jon an extension. I would hold out until Feb. 29, Leap Year Day.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 28, I gave him one last warning. “How would you feel,” I asked, “going through life, married to someone who had proposed marriage to you?”<\/p>\n

“I think it would be charming,” he said.<\/p>\n

A sweet reply, one that appeased the romantic in me. The next morning, the 29th<\/sup>, I put my arms around Jon’s neck and whispered in his ear, “Will you marry me?”<\/p>\n

“Yes.”<\/p>\n

Moving On\/In<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Jon moved the rubber tree plant in and gave his landlord notice.<\/p>\n

We spent the next months debating wedding plans. Jon wanted to elope.<\/p>\n

I wanted a church wedding. I wanted to be married in full view of my family, Jon’s family, our friends, and God himself.<\/p>\n

Jon said he would be embarrassed by all that attention.<\/p>\n

The issues kept coming up. Would there be dancing? Two rings or one? Should the bride wear white? The details meant a lot to me, and little to Jon.<\/p>\n

Finally, he said gently, “You plan it the way you want it. I’ll be there.” He was.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 1987 The\u00a0Oakland Tribun<\/a><\/em>e<\/a>. Used by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

Leap Days happen every four years. Leap seconds are added every now and then. My brother-in-law, a certified geek, threw a Leap Second party on June 30, 2012. Read all about it at “Take a Second to Read About the Fabled Leap Second.”<\/a>\u00a0More about marriage with Jon at “Why Can’t a Dad Be More Like a Mom . . . Do We Really Want Them to Be?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Barbara<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a Leap Year, and Monday is Leap Day. That means Jon and I will be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the day I proposed marriage. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,29,1630,1631,82,517,1632],"class_list":["post-23880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-dont-miss","tag-jon","tag-leap-year","tag-marriage-proposal","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-ruth-newhall","tag-weddings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}