March 29, 2024

A snowball’s chance

“My husband and I met in a rather unusual way,” said Rhonda (Fry) Giles.

The date was Nov. 15, 1968 and Rhonda and her friend, Julie Berg, were “cruising the loop” with plans to have a Coke at Bike’s Burger Barn on Highway 34, where Taco John’s is currently located.

Berg was driving her dad’s Chevy and they pulled up to the stoplight at the intersection of Adams and Maple streets. There was snow on the ground, but Rhonda had her window rolled down.

“Julie had the car heater cranked up pretty high — a little too high for me,” said Rhonda. “We were listening to music, waiting for the light to turn green when a snowball flew through the window striking me in the side of the head.”

Rhonda said she was startled and more than a little unhappy, so she spun her head around to look out the window and came face-to-face with two laughing boys in a 1965 Chevy Chevelle. As she rolled up her window, feeling indignant, she flashed them “the look.”

When Berg pulled away from the intersection, the boys followed them and continued to follow them for a short while.

Jim Giles said he and his friend, Leonard Holt, decided to follow Rhonda and Berg out of curiosity.

“Back then, cruising was a big thing and we were just cruising up and down Adams Street. We thought, ‘Well, here’s two Creston girls.’ We assumed they were from Creston. We really didn’t know, so we followed them,” said Jim.

Berg wanted to pull over, but Rhonda just wanted to go home, but fate had other plans.

Berg pulled over and so did the boys. Rhonda locked her car door — convinced she didn’t want to have anything more to do with the boys — but Berg rolled down her window.

Jim and Holt suggested the two girls ride around with them for a while.

Rhonda said “no,” but Berg said “sure,” so Rhonda had to decide in a hurry whether to stay or go.

She decided to go because the others said they would take her home, but they didn’t. The group drove around for a while, ending up at William’s Cafe, located on the corner of South Elm Street and Highway 34 across from the A&W Restauratnt, for pizza.

“[The boys], not knowing I worked there, thought we would be really impressed,” said Rhonda.

“We thought we would take them to this little out of the way place nobody knew about,” said Jim. “Turns out, everyone knew where it was.”

Rhonda said at last she and Berg were returned to Berg’s car.

Although neither of the boys impressed Rhonda, the next day, after Jim finished his shift at Nook Electric, he showed up at William’s Cafe during Rhonda’s shift and asked her to go out with him.

“I have no clue why I said ‘yes,’ since I was certain he was not my type,” said Rhonda. “He turned out the be a lot nicer than I originally thought. He was a gentleman. I hadn’t had too much experience with people who were actually gentlemen — who opened doors and car doors for you.”

Their first date was a night at the movie theater watching Rosemary’s Baby. Rhonda said she had read the book and was curious to see how closely the movie stuck to the book.

The rest of the story

“A week earlier, Julie and I were asking the Ouija Board if we should get dates for TWIRP-BIRP, held on Nov. 15, that year,” said Rhonda. “The answer was ‘no’ because I was going to meet ‘Tim.’

As fate would have it, Jim and Leonard were stood up by blind dates at the Adair High School that night and decided to take a quick cruise up Adams Street before heading home to Arispe.

Jim and Rhonda have been together ever since. They were married two years later, to the hour, after that first meeting and will celebrate their 50th anniversary on Nov. 15, 2020.

“I joke that I am still making him pay for that snowball,” said Rhonda.