Couples have all kinds of stories about how they met. Some sound like they’re straight out of a fairytale. Others… well, don’t. Some stories are so typical of the era that they give a romantic snapshot of life at that time. My in-laws met that way. This love story drips with mid-20th-century nostalgia, to the point that it could have been an episode of the ’70s TV show “Happy Days”. Here’s the story.
Let’s Start With Bud
Edwin “Bud” Meydam graduated from high school in 1943. At the time, World War II was still at full blast. He decided to join the fight and enrolled with the Army Air Corps. Through those last years of the war, Bud didn’t see action, instead working stateside as an airplane mechanic in the “hot south”.
After his discharge at the end of the war, Bud gave higher education a try. He spent a couple of years at the Wisconsin State College – Oshkosh before deciding it just wasn’t his thing. During his summers off from college, Bud worked at the paper mill in Rothschild, Wisconsin. When he didn’t go back to school, they offered him a full-time job. Little did he know that by accepting this job he was laying the cornerstone for a long career in Wausau area industries.
Now, Meet Helen
Helen Reinecke graduated from high school in 1949. She decided to take advantage of the excitement and prosper of the postwar era and began college at the Wisconsin State College – Stevens Point. After her freshman year, her sister Sally offered her room and board for the summer if she’d help take care of her sons. Helen accepted and spent the summer playing with her nephews and working as a carhop at a local drive-in called the Pig ‘N Poke.
I’m sure you’re wondering if this was one of those drive-ins where the carhops skated around in rollerskates balancing food and drinks on platters while gracefully spinning in circles. If you weren’t wondering, now you are. And, unfortunately, this drive-in parking lot was gravel. So, no. She didn’t wear roller skates. Too bad – I like to picture her as a natural, whirling around with fries and a shake. Anyway…
Midnight at the Pig ‘N Poke Drive-In
This was the setting of the summer of 1950.
When not working at the paper mill, Bud spent a lot of time hanging around with his buddy Ray Roeske. The two of them loved to golf or go roller skating. Afterward, they always stopped by the Pig ‘N Poke for a hot dog or the specialty of the house, a Pig ‘N Poke pork sandwich, and a root beer. 25 cents for the sandwich and 5 cents for the rootbeer – yep, it was 1950.
Courtesy of Newspapers.com.
Ray and Bud were two young, single men with wartime service records and jobs. I’m sure many of the young women in the area thought these guys were “good catches,” and they weren’t bad looking to boot!
On one of these evenings, close to midnight, the pair of bachelors stopped at the drive-in. Helen happened to be the carhop on duty, and she knew Ray. Since Helen loved to talk (correction, loves to talk… she still does), they joked around and laughed for a while.
At the time, Helen knew Ray’s friend only as “Bud”. Meanwhile, Bud didn’t know Helen’s name at all. She was “the carhop”. It was closing time when they finished eating. Before leaving, Ray flirtatiously mentioned to Helen that they were going golfing the next day at 6:00 in the morning. He dared her to get up and go with them. To his surprise, Helen took him up on his bet. They gave her a ride home from work so they’d know where to pick her up the next morning. She promised to be waiting for them.
Ray and Bud didn’t think Helen was serious. There was no way that, after working until midnight, she would get up and be ready to go at 6 am. They figured, though, that they had better drive past her house just in case. They pulled up, expecting to find a quiet, empty front porch. Instead, there she was! Ready to go, and not at all quiet!
The Golf Outing
Now what these young men didn’t know is that Helen had gone on a golfing date with another young man the week before. She knew how to golf. In fact, she played so well on that date that the young man was quite disgruntled and didn’t ask her out again. Not exactly what she had hoped for.
As a single, nineteen-year-old woman, Helen had been praying to meet a man and she had some very specific ideas about what he should be like. This time Helen decided that if she wanted a second date, she had better play dumb. It was hard to do that with Ray, though. Ray was a good golfer and could hit the ball at least 30 yards farther than Bud could. He ended up way ahead on the golf course, so Bud wound up golfing with “Ray’s date”.
Helen decided to stick with her plan anyway. She pretended that she didn’t know how to play golf, instead following Bud around and retrieving golf balls for him. They laughed and joked the whole time. Bud quickly discovered that Helen wasn’t just a carhop and had a wonderful sense of humor. They had a great time on the golf course that day.
The Love Story
A few days after the golf outing, Ray had a date with another one of his girlfriends. Bud decided to make it a double date, asking Helen to go with him. The plan was for the four of them to head to Merrill, Wisconsin for dinner and a movie, about 17 miles north of Wausau. However, at the last minute, Ray called Bud to let him know they couldn’t make it. Bud and Helen were on their own.
That was the beginning. From that date on, they were together every weekend. Bud met every one of Helen’s requirements for a husband. He was tall, handsome, and loved to laugh. He was a Christian and had a good job. Heck, he had even been an airman! Helen’s prayers were answered.
Bud proposed to Helen about a year later and they were married in 1952. They were the typical 1950s couple with a modern flat-roofed house, a lot of pastel colors in their kitchen, a station wagon in the garage, and, eventually, three strapping sons.
Bud and Helen enjoyed 63 years of marriage until Bud passed away in 2016. It isn’t often that a marriage lasts that long these days, but couples like Bud and Helen know how to get through the rocky times to make it work. Even if it takes pretending not to know how to play golf.
Image Credit: Photos from the family files of Helen Reinecke Meydam and Janet Meydam.
