In my life, I'll love you more

Since we're on vacation in a city where we've never been, we decided to test out the ol' GPS and do a little bit of exploring. We picked the "nearest restaurants" button and settled on Panera for our breakfast.

John ordered a bagel. I, a four cheese soufflé (yum!) and an orange scone. Of all the ooie gooie sweet treats they have there, I always order the orange scone. There's something comforting about that not-so-sweet biscuit drizzled with orange icing, it takes me back to my Granny's house. When I was a child, she always gave us home made biscuits. I remember eating them with every meal. In the mornings she would serve them hot out of the oven with butter and orange marmalade. The hot biscuit would warm the marmalade, the combined fragrance of the two was wonderful! My Pop-Pop always told me that he married my Granny because of those biscuits.

My grandparents met in the 1930s in Cumberland, Maryland. Isabelle, my grandmother, had just finished college and was working a new job at an insurance company. She was fiercely independent, she put herself through college during a time when most women didn't even go to college. She was living in a boarding house, the single women lived on one floor, the single men on a separate floor. Men were never ever allowed on the women's floor, those were the rules.

Isabelle came home from work one night. It was a cold, wet evening. It had been raining and everything was a muddy mess. A gentleman held open the door for her as she made her way into the boarding house.  She nodded her thanks, took the stairs to here room on the women's floor, took off her shoes, and left them outside her door so she wouldn't track mud into her room. That was another rule of the boarding house, no muddy shoes in the rooms.  Isabelle was cold and wet so she made herself dinner, went to bed, and forgot she had left her shoes outside her door in the hallway. The next morning, Isabelle opened her door and her shoes were neatly laying on the floor, perfectly cleaned and shined. Someone had cleaned the mud and had polished them during the night. She had no idea who it was. She asked around but no one took credit for the good deed.

The next evening was more of the same cold, wet, rainy, muddy weather. Isabelle came home from work, left her muddy shoes by her door, and, once again, they were cleaned and polished the next morning!  This went on for a week.  Every night, she left muddy shoes by her door.  The next morning they had been cleaned and polished.

She was very curious by this point, she had no idea who was cleaning and shining her shoes!  She had asked the other women on her floor but they didn't know either. It took her a while, but she finally talked to the right person and she found out who it was. A young gentleman by the name of Leonard had a friend who lived in the boarding house on the men's floor. Leonard had been visiting his friend one wet, cold, rainy evening and had held the front door open for a woman.  Leonard noticed as she walked past him that she was soaking wet and her shoes were covered with mud.  She had completely caught his eye, as they used to say back then, but Leonard was shy.  He didn't know how to approach Isabelle.  He was very resourceful, so he came up with his plan.  He would sneak onto the Women's floor and clean her shoes.  So he did.  Every night.

Long story short, they finally met, fell in love and were married.  Isabelle married Leonard for his chivalry, Leonard married Isabelle for her biscuits.  They were married until Leonard passed away at the age of 73.

And damn did my Granny make some good biscuits.