Read Decision Points for Free Online Page B

the drive home.
    A local policeman, Calvin Bridges , thought it was odd that I was going about ten miles an hour and had two wheels on the shoulder. When I failed the straight-line walk, he took me off to the station. I was guilty and told the authorities so.
    I was also embarrassed. I had made a serious mistake. I was fortunate I hadn’t done any harm to my passengers, other drivers, or myself. I paid a $150 fine and did not drive in Maine for the proscribed period. The case was closed. Or so I thought.

    That fall, I started thinking seriously about settling down. The DUI was part of it, but the feeling had been building for months. My rootless ways were getting a little old. So was I. The big 3-0 had come in the summer. I had pledged that I would spend my first ten years after college experiencing a lot and not getting tied down. That was a promise I had kept. But the decade was almost up.
    Back home in Midland in July 1977, my old friend Joe O’Neill invited me over for a burger. I rarely turned down homemade meals. They sure beat the fast food that tended to be my staple. Joe and his wife, Jan, had someone they wanted me to meet: one of Jan’s best friends, Laura Welch. I arrived a little late. There in the backyard were Jan and Laura, who was wearing a blue sundress.
    She was gorgeous. She had stunning blue eyes and moved so gracefully. She was intelligent and dignified, with a warm and easy laugh. If there is love at first sight, this was it.
    Laura and I discovered that we had grown up near each other in Midland and both attended seventh grade at San Jacinto Junior High. We had even lived in the same apartment complex in Houston. She lived on the quiet side, where people sat by the pool and read books. I lived on the side where people played water volleyball till late at night. No wonder our paths had never crossed.
    I called Laura the next day, and we agreed to meet again that night. I asked if she wanted to play putt-putt golf. I knew she was my kind of girl when she agreed. Her short game was a little shaky, but she was a lot of fun to be around. My favorable impressions from the previous evening were strengthened. There was only one bad part. Laura had to go back to Austin, where she was a school librarian at Dawson Elementary. I missed her immediately and started visiting her there as often as I could.
    We were a perfect match. I’m a talker; Laura is a listener. I am restless; she is calm. I can get a little carried away; she is practical and down-to-earth. Above all, she is genuine and natural. There is no phoniness about her. Her appeal was immediate and constant. In August, I went to visit my family in Kennebunkport, planning to stay for a week. After one night, I flew back to Texas to be with Laura.

    Laura and me.
    A few weeks after we met, Laura introduced me to her parents, Harold and Jenna Welch . Her mom, a kind, sweet, and patient woman, always made me feel welcome. Her dad loved sports and enjoyed putting down a wager or two on football. His hangout was Johnny’s Barbecue. The locals called it the Sick Pig because of the awful wooden pig on top of the restaurant. One day Laura’s dad introduced me to his friends at the Sick Pig, including Johnny himself. I think I passed muster, because I was offered a screwdriver. I turned it down. It was nine o’clock in the morning.
    The courtship moved fast. One weekend Laura and I took a trip to Anne and Tobin Armstrong ’s ranch in South Texas. Anne was a former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and she and Tobin had invited Prince Charles to play polo. Another weekend we visited John and Angie Newcombe at his tennis academy in New Braunfels, in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. This time I kept my hands on the beer mug and off the steering wheel. I was falling hard for Laura. I was not much of a cat person, but I knew our relationship was solid when I bonded with her black-and-white shorthair, Dewey, named for the decimal system.
    I’ve never been