essay #6

My grandfather opened up a hotdog stand about fifteen years ago it had always been a dream of his. He always wanted to have a little hot dog and ice cream place similar to the one where he grew up. I worked there the second year it was open until it closed seven years ago. Who knew working at Hot Diggity Dog would lead to finding my future husband, getting married, and having children.

I used to work six days a week for my grandfather every summer at Hot Diggity Dog. It was a fun place to work and very fast paced so you were always busy. A few years after I started a boy named Bill was hired as one of the cooks. There was a lot of talk around that he thought I was cute and he wanted to ask me out on a date but I already had a boyfriend. I would look at Bill and think there is no way I would ever go out with him he was not my type. He was 6 feet 5 inches tall and I was 5 feet 2 inches on a good day. He was tall, blonde hair, blue eyes not the usual darker featured boy I typically was attracted too. The more we worked together the more I started to like him. He was actually really nice and more mature then a lot of the other guys I had dated. Then my family started to say “ Oh Melody just go out on one date with him, he is such a nice boy” I had just broken it off with my boyfriend which needless to say was not a very good relationship so I didn’t want to jump into anything right off. I decided to go out on a date with him which was really just the two of us driving around talking. We started going out more often and found out we had a lot of the same interest and values. We remained friends for awhile but would keep in touch when he was off at college. When summer rolled around again that meant we would see each other all the time since we would be working together. After that second summer of spending so much time together we knew we were going to be together.

He proposed to me as soon as I got out of high school it was during the summer at Schoodic. He likes to tell everyone that when he asked me to marry him my response was “sure” but I don’t remember it like that at all. He would always make fun of me for saying “sure” whenever he would ask me to do something so I think he likes tell everyone I said “sure” just so he can make fun of me and get a good laugh. We waited to get married after he was out of college so July 3 1999 we were married. We both love the summer and three is my favorite number (I don’t really know why it just always been my favorite number) so that is why we chose that date. It was in the mid nineties that day and the church had no air condition, I’m not sure what we were thinking. I few of our relatives wore Hot Diggity Dog shirts to the wedding, which was very appropriate. The day was exactly the way I pictured it (even tough I am sure a few guest would have appreciated it a little cooler.) The day was still perfect to us we were just very excited to begin our new life together.

Shortly after we got married we started talking about children. We both new we wanted kids so a year into our marriage we decided to start trying. It took us a few years but in 2002 we had or son it was the happiest and scariest moment of our lives. We had been waiting for this little baby for what seemed like eternity and finally there he was with his big blue eyes staring back at us. It took some time getting used to our new roles as parents but we finally understood what we were supposed to do. We started talking about number two shortly after Keaton was born and in 2005 we had Marnie. We couldn’t have been happier to have to healthy children. Before we started having kids we talked about three children but after we had two we seemed content. Every once in awhile I would find myself longing for another one but Bill was just fine with the two children we had. I kept going back and forth on whether or not to have another child but I knew I really wanted to have two more feet running around the house. So we said oh what the heck what is one more? We had our third child this year and it was the best decision we could have made. I knew I always wanted three and I always felt like something or someone was missing before we had Piper. I don’t have that feeling anymore I know we are complete we are a well rounded family of five.

I can’t believe all that has happened over the past fifteen years it doesn’t seem possible. Hot Diggity Dog was a dream of my grandfathers looking back I never would have imagined it would have made all my dreams come true as well. Hot Diggity Dog closed before my children were born; I wish they could have seen it since that is where the whole Tracy clan began.