"Who would have ever imagined you two together!" was a remark we heard frequently from friends and church members alike once they learned that we were engaged. If the truth were told, we never would have believed it ourselves. Nora is known to be a politically outspoken liberal, while I make no apologies for being an active grassroots conservative. Nora, was raised in a sixteen-story Lower East Side Manhattan apartment building. She moved to San Jose, CA, "to live in a small town." I have lived most of my life in rural and small town Idaho. I moved to the California Bay Area to attend graduate school "in the big city."

Sometimes referred to as "the ultimate unlikely couple," we seem to have broken the accepted norm even for "unusual couples." If there is an age difference in a couple it is often expected to be an older man with a "cutesy young thing." In our case, Nora is 52 and I am 44. Even the vast majority of black/white marriages involve a black husband with white wife, but we even managed to reverse that. Until I left home for college at age nineteen, I could count the number of Blacks I had met in my whole life on one hand. There might have been few individuals of non-white ethnic backgrounds where I grew up, but I never saw them.

Ours was not love at first sight. My first memory of Nora is at a church picnic where she had been asked to give a short talk. As I remember it - she denies this (tongue in cheek, I say) - she made a couple of oblique references that revealed her political persuasion. I remember thinking, "Man, would I love the chance to straighten her out!" Her early recollections of me involve several after-church dinners at a mutual friend's house, where I would indulge in the antisocial proclivity of taking naps following a big meal. After several such occurrences her opinion seemed to be confirmed, "That man must surely be a dullard."

I mentioned at one of these dinners how I wished there was someone who would show me the Bay Area attractions. I was thinking in terms of the single guys at church since I was only a few years out of an 18-year marriage and was just becoming content with my singleness. I most certainly was not interested in any romantic entanglements. To my surprise Nora spoke up, saying she too would like to do that. I thought she would be "safe" company-someone with whom I could visit local museums, San Francisco, the ocean and other sights. Not in my wildest imaginations did I picture us as anything more than just friends.

To our surprise, we found each other to be congenial company. As we became acquainted we learned that for all of our apparent differences we had much in common. I gave her a self-test personality book early in our friendship, and found that we had almost identical temperaments. (She claims I wanted to find out whether we were compatible, but really, I just thought she might enjoy the tests as much as I had.)

My opinion of her turned into grudging admiration as I heard stories of her "spunk." I admired her tenacity in such things as buying her first car alone and then teaching herself how to drive it in New York City, or starting her first business-a women's clothing store-from scratch with only twenty-five dollars in her pocket. Her appraisal of me was revised as she learned that I had been a "crop duster" for 13 years-she had always wanted to fly.

We found that we both valued truth more than our comfortable preconceived opinions-political and otherwise. We enjoy the intellectual stimulation of having our worldviews challenged. We both love knowledge and learning. Both of us have a history of what might be called, "unintentional non-conformism"; we don't seek to be different from the crowd, we just don't care about the crowd. We had both despaired of knowing another open, honest person, one who would respect the other's person-hood, someone who would know the real meaning of trust and commitment. We have identical life goals, lifestyle values and career dreams. I had my heart set on returning to a more rural lifestyle, a dream of Nora, but far from her ken. Nora was launching a new career in writing, a secret "wanna-be" of mine.

After Nora and I had become friends I discussed our relationship with another friend who remarked, "You know, interracial couples are needed to help break down society's racial prejudice."

"Yes, I know", I replied. "But I don't see myself in that picture. It's just not my burden. Other couples can take up that cause." But the old conceptions of my future were beginning to crumble.

After a year of being almost inseparable, I wanted to show Nora my old "stomping grounds" and introduce her to my family in Idaho, both of which I had talked much about. The morning before our departure, after months and several phone calls to Idaho and extensive planning of our vacation, I received one of the great surprises of my life. Dad called--itself a singular incident--and I was completely taken back by his diatribe over my involvement with a black woman. In the end, we were invited to stay somewhere else if I wouldn't agree to come alone. He may have thought he could scare away my loyalty to Nora, as if I were a dependant child, but the lesson I took "home" was that sometimes water is thicker than blood. Such manipulative behavior toward a middle-aged adult only serves to alienate. All other members of my extended family - mother, brother, aunt and uncle, cousins - after being initially wary, have become supportive. This experience, along with other more minor encounters with social prejudice, has gradually changed my mind about racism not being "my cause." I do not seek confrontation, but I believe that the value of us each is in our characters and when I encounter a social wrong of any kind, I will fight it.

Nora and I are now happily married. We enjoy our outward differences knowing our inward similarities are what really matter. I have found my soul mate in a person I never would have imagined.