The Adventure Begins

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

The Adventure Begins

Cindy and I met in June of 1981 when I went to work in the Southwest Regional Accounting Center for Kraft Foods in Garland, TX just after graduating from North Texas State University. She was an Accounts Payable clerk there. I was a shy kid and my boss, Quinn Hunter, decided that I was not interacting enough with the other employees. I was a supervisor trainee and all I wanted to do was figure out how the 'things' worked, to become an expert at 'things.' Quinn thought I needed to work on people skills and his solution was to move me to the desk behind Cindy. He was not match-making, he just sincerely thought Cindy could help me socially and besides, it was perfectly safe because Cindy was married; when I first met her she was Cindy Garza.

We became friends, and it was strictly friends. I started going out to lunch with the gang of accounting clerks ... Belinda and Gloria and Monette and Tracy and Laney and Brenda and Lola and others I can't recall by name. Lunches led to happy hours. Happy hours led to parties and concerts and soon enough the shy Texas Panhandle kid became friends with this group of suburban Dallas women. Cindy fixed me up with her friend Nancy and so it went.

In late January of 1982 the hated San Francisco 49ers, who had defeated our heroes the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship game that year, were playing the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl. I was invited to a Super Bowl party at the Garza's and went with the expectation that it would be awkward. Though I had met Cindy's husband, Ricky, I knew that me being friends with Cindy was an issue for him, and this would be the first time we spent any significant time together. And, there would be alcohol. I did not want to be the source of any discord, and frankly, I was pretty sure Ricky would kick my ass or kill me if he thought I was interfering. I brought Tracy from the office to the party. It was a long, awkward night. I felt very out of place and unwelcome. We left the party before the game ended. There were the usual group of guys smoking pot outside, which didn't bother me too much, but when the cocaine came out, I started planning my exit. It was the 80's so I had some experience with cocaine and parties; none of it was good. I think Cindy was aware of the pot. I'd be surprised if she knew about the coke.

After the party, things changed. Seeing Cindy and Ricky interact in their home, I knew she wasn't happy despite putting on a good face for everyone. I also knew that any encouragement from me to make a change would be a bad thing for both of us. Cindy knew that I knew her marriage wasn't working, which led to some deep conversations on love and life and committment and responsibility. At the time, Cindy was taking night classes at Richland Jr. College. Sometimes, before or after class, we would meet up and talk. Just us. Talk was all it was, though there was an ease about our being together, despite both of us being acutely aware she was married. We learned a lot about each other - just talking about work and family and growing up and how we pictured our life unfolding. She was trying to sort out what to do with her marriage and school and work, and I was doing my best to be a good listener and to play Switzerland and, I suspect, failing badly at both.

Cindy & Dexter - Garland - 1982

Neither of us said anything about starting a relationship at the time, but later she told me she knew we were meant-to-be because my face would light up and my eyes would sparkle when I saw her. It was true. I remember that feeling, and I remember seeing her response of just melting and relaxing, completely comfortable with me, just glad to be with me. At one point I took a trip up to Weatherford, OK to hang out with my friend Eddie. I confessed to him that I was falling in love with a married woman, and struggling to not be an instigator. He advised what I knew all along, what I had been trying to convince myself of, that Cindy needed to make her own decision and that regardless of what it was, I would need to live with it. I had to trust in the meant-to-be because I could see no other way to make it work in the long run.

Eddie, Gloria & Cindy
Dallas Zoo - Summer 1982

It was Easter weekend when Cindy came by my apartment and announced that she had left Ricky. All she said was that something had happened to make her choose, and she chose to leave. She never said what it was, and she never said anything bad about Ricky. When asked by friends what happened and what went wrong she would simply say they were too young when they made their commitment to each other, and later found out they wanted different things. I accepted that explanation because I respected the difficulty of her decision, and their privacy. We never really talked about Ricky and her first marriage again. We saw him at the funeral of a mutual friend, James Lee, and that was cordial. We saw him again at her father Darvis' funeral, though that time we made a point to tell our son, Griffin, that Mom had been married before and he would likely be meeting her ex-husband. We explained that it had never seemed important to let him know, since we were married 13 years before Griffin was born and it wasn't something that was part of our lives. Like most things, Griffin was okay with it.

It was 1982. She was 20; I was 22. We knew all we thought we needed to know. We started officially dating that spring, though it was much frowned upon by Quinn, who lectured me about it in early July when I was being promoted and transferred to Atlanta, GA. He reminded me that there I would be a supervisor, not just a trainee, and it was inappropriate for management to date the staff. I told him it wouldn't be a problem. I don't think he knew how serious I was about Cindy, and that soon one of his staff would be moving to Atlanta for the next great adventure.