Crush on a guy
I grew up in a small Wyoming town; my husband grew up in a small Pennsylvania town. We both left our towns after high school graduation, and aside from a couple years when our children were tiny, we didn’t go back.
He left Rochester, Pennsylvania in 1983. He joined the National Guard, went wherever boot camp and radio training were, and then moved to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, to college. In the summer of 1989 he met the missionaries and, with God’s help, changed his life. He moved to Rexburg, Idaho, lived in student housing, and worked as a janitor in a potato processing warehouse.
I graduated from high school in 1989 and started at Ricks College in Idaho, at that time a two-year school. My roommates actually met up with his roommates for a party, but neither of us was present. My future husband and I met in the first morning class of the first day of the second semester. It was a religion class focusing on the book of scripture called The Pearl of Great Price. Our instructor had us each stand and introduce ourselves to the class. I stood up and said, “My name is Melinda LaFollette, and my favorite activity is to smile.” I beamed at the class and sat down. When the class got to my future husband, he slouched in his chair, smiling, and said, “I’m Shawn Ambrose; this is my ninth semester of college, and I’m here to tell you that’s not the way to do it.” The class laughed.
After class we talked briefly and over the next month I admit, I frequently walked with him to wherever he went next. I didn’t have a class immediately afterwards, so I wanted to talk. It was a small campus which didn’t take long to walk across. In a few minutes we parted and I went to study.
Now, I was serious about smiling. I had smiled at everyone when I started at Ricks College. I got mostly positive results, including four young men who called my apartment looking for me before I got back from Christmas vacation. My roommates said I needed a social secretary. I had a serious crush on a guy, but he wasn’t one of the ones beating down my door, and he wasn’t my future husband, either. I played French horn in the college band. The horn player who sat next to me was a 24 year old returned missionary who wore suits and wingtip shoes every day. I saw him in gym clothes exactly once, when he had not had time to change before band. He was tall and very handsome. I had asked him to a dance in November and had fun. At the Christmas concert someone had the band director present a bouquet of flowers to one of the women in the band. It was him. I left after that concert in tears. To the horn player’s credit, he noticed I was upset and asked about it, but I was about to break down sobbing and didn’t want to in public, so I ducked out. My women friends comforted me, and I reluctantly let go. I remained friends with the horn player, and I tried to be supportive when he got engaged to someone else. When at last I introduced my future husband to the horn player, the horn player told me later that he felt towards me the kind of concern that an older brother would feel towards his sister who’s getting engaged. He wanted to know my fiance would take care of me.
