Margie was born on a crisp December morning exactly
39 years ago in International Falls, MN. She spent most of her early years in a wonderful midwest town, Petersburg,
NE, a town that has furnished her with numerous lifetime friendships. Margie has been a writer since she was old
enough to hold a pencil and has finally placed several books with agents. She has 4 wonderful children by a previous
marriage and we now share 13 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. Tom managed to join the family before our
youngest grand-daughter, Mary Belle Morris. Margie likes to play piano and guitar, she also has a lovely contralto voice.
Tom was born in Wichita Falls, TX, also 39 years ago. He
grew up as a farm kid near a small town (Iowa Park, TX) and he's never gotten it out of his blood. He is also a closet cartoonist who tried to go to work for Walt Disney Studios
at age 9 but they asked him to wait a few years. Still waiting but still doodling. He had a promising career shaping
up as a motorcycle racer until it dawned on him that he wasn't all that good. Oh well. Cruising & collecting
has been a fine substitute. Aviation is another love. Tom learned to fly originally in 1968 and had his
own plane for 8 years. It was a 1976 Cessna 150 bought from a local flying school, hardly a Lear Jet but lots of fun.
He sold it shortly after moving to Colorado and deciding against becoming a human lawn dart. Tom's favorites flown so far are a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, a Ford TriMotor and a Pitts
Special. Other hobbies are Photoshop, digital photography, genealogy, target shooting, riding his Harley, woodworking and
navel-pondering.
We both retired in 2001, Tom from AT&T and Margie from Kaiser-Permanente,
an HMO. She also had a long background in bookkeeping so she gets to keep our nickels accounted for. We bought
a 31' Class C motorhome shortly after retiring and have made a few trips across the midwest and to California from
San Diego to above San Francisco plus a few week-enders, mostly while we still lived in Colorado. Seems like something's
always in the way and we often wonder how we ever found time to have jobs.
Our courtship was interesting, to say the least. We met on the Internet
while doing genealogy research on the name McKinnon, which we both shared. She was living in Corona, CA, and I was living
in Bailey, CO, so it was a challenge from the start. We feel that destiny stepped in to set us on our course.
When Margie was a small girl in North Dakota, she heard a song that she felt was about her and the man she was to grow old
with, its name was "When You And I Were Young, Maggie". Her fear was how would he ever know. While we
were still corresponding (15 page emails daily...) I asked if she had much Celtic music, one thing I have in abundance.
When she said she had hardly any, I decided to make her a tape of some of my favorites plus whatever else I could find that
sounded 'right'. I was working around the house playing different music and making notes of what I thought should be
included on the tape. One tune I heard made me literally drop what I was doing to run see what was playing, the most
haunting tune I'd ever heard. I checked the title on the CD case and it said "Maggie". Incredible, I thought,
that's so close to her name! I rearranged the tape I'd been putting together to feature "Maggie" as the first thing
she'd hear. Then as an afterthought before sealing the package to mail, I wrote a short note saying that I hoped it
wasn't presumptuous to consider that "our" song. I also wrote that hearing it (an instrumental version) had created visions
of us standing high up on a hill and watching the world below. I had never heard the song before so had no idea that
I wrote, almost word for word, the first lines of the song. She put the tape in her player, pushed the play
button, and almost went into shock. "Her" song and "he" found it. Absolutely amazing and way beyond chance.
We decided that since a common Scottish ancestry brought us together, then that's
where we should be married. We were married on May 6, 2000 in Melrose, Scotland and said our final vows at the
ruins of Melrose Abbey which dates to 1136. No way to put into words how wonderful this was. All my life I'd dreamed
of going to Scotland and now we are here for our wedding. Unbeknownst to me, Margie arranged to have a piper for
the reception and sent him the music to "Maggie" and he adapted it for the bagpipes. She expected him alone but
it turned out that he was head of a band that was having a competition in a nearby village afterward so he brought along his
entire 8-member band which consisted of 3 pipers and 5 drummers. I have to admit to getting a wee bit damp of eye.
Our Best Man and Matron of Honor were our good friends Paul & Kathleen Ainsley of Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, England.
We spent 2 1/2 weeks touring England and Scotland on that trip and returned for our first anniversary to be in Melrose and
then another 2 1/2 weeks of both countries. Margie and I both have strong feelings of being at home whenever we
are there. We are blessed with wonderful friends in both England and Scotland and love what time we can spend
with them.
We made our third trip together in September 2006 and spent 3 weeks touring England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland. We got to tour Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul's
Cathedral, (an ambulance ride to St. Mary's Hospital but that's another story), the Sherlock Holmes Museum, York Minster,
took a horse-drawn carriage ride around York, stayed with friends in Whitley Bay, spent a night in a caravan in Wooler, toured
the Flodden Field battlefield on the 493rd anniversary of that battle, went to the Black Bull Pub at Cornhill-on-Tweed and
the Red Lion Inn in Milfield, Bamburgh Castle, Etal Castle, spent 4 nights in Kilravock Castle near Inverness, Culloden Battlefield,
Cawdor Castle, Glen Affric, Urquhart Castle at Loch Ness, stayed with friends in Glasgow, attended a music festival in Tarbert
on Kintyre, another festival at Loch Lomond and many other places & sites in England and Scotland. We moved
by rail down to Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey, Wales and ferried over to Dublin, Ireland, where we toured Rathfarnham Castle,
down to Avoca for a night (and a pint of Guinness Stout at Fitzgerald's of Ballykissangel fame), then on to Wexford
for a night. We took another Stena Line ferry from Rosslare Europort over to Fishguard, Wales, then a train across Wales
with a change at Cardiff and then back to London. Great trip. We're tired and broke but it was worth it.
