High school doodle comes true for Warrenville mayor

It all began in the early 1960s when a new family moved into a house across the street from us on Lorraine Street in Warrenville. There were six kids, the oldest being this little red-haired girl.

My brothers and I had put up a basketball backboard and hoop on a telephone pole on the corner where we played "horse" and where I frequently went out to just shoot baskets.

Before long, the little red-haired girl began walking over to watch and chase the ball for me when it took a wild bounce.

At first, I found her to be a bit of a pest, but at some point over the next couple of years, annoyance morphed into interest, followed by attraction, as she changed from little girl to young lady.

Sometimes I would find myself staring out the window toward her yard wishing her to be out, so I could grab my basketball and head out in the hopes that she might join me.

I remember one day when I was a senior in high school and she was in eighth grade. I was supposed to be studying for a history exam but was daydreaming. I wrote in the margin on one of the pages of the text: "Someday I will marry Mary Ellen Vincent."

Well, that schoolbook is long gone, but I made good on my resolve when I graduated from the University of Iowa, she graduated from high school and started college at NIU, and we were married.

On Aug. 10 of this year, that will be 48 years ago. It has been a most amazing and wonderful adventure, and as different as we are in so many ways, we have managed to both grow as individuals as well as grow closer as the decades have piled up behind us.

And to paraphrase a line from Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets:" She still makes me want to be a better man.

• David Brummel is the mayor of Warrenville.