My Cool Rider

While I was attending Eastern Arizona College years ago, my roommates and I sat around one night discussing marriage and how we would like to be proposed to when we found the “one.” Some of my roommates wanted a big announcement in a public place. Another roommate wanted her knight in shining armor riding up on a white horse on the beach. We all had very different ideas.

I grew up in the days of Grease. I loved the Grease movies. My sister and I would hold a tape recorder up to the TV to record the songs so we could sing and dance to them later. I think I still have every word of those movies memorized. So, my ideal proposal was probably influenced by these movies- especially Grease 2. I wanted to be proposed to just like the mysterious Michael Carrington swept Stephanie Zinone off her feet.

I mentioned the conversation that I had with my roommates to Eric, years later after we started dating. But I didn’t think he would remember when it came time to propose.

A couple months after we started dating Eric showed up at my door- dressed exactly how I pictured he would years ago. He was mysterious just like Michael Carrington. He cut out all the small talk and simply said “Wanna go for a ride?” I looked past Eric to see a Harley parked in my driveway. I hopped on the bike behind Eric, held on tight and we were off.


He drove out to the White Tank Mountains and pulled into a secluded place where I saw a table for two all set up with flowers and food. We got off the bike and walked over to the table. Eric bent down on one knee, pulled out my ring and recited a beautiful poem he wrote. The whole thing was just perfect and better than I had imagined.

On the way home, the Harley ran out of gas. We had to call my parents to help us and Eric was so embarrassed. I didn’t care. I smiled so big the whole ride home and got a mouthful of bugs. It was a ride to remember.

If you know the "Cool Rider" song from Grease, Eric was definitely it.