Love Story: Suzanne Hall and Joe Willis

It was December and my old Volvo needed some work. As I left it at with my mechanic, his wife introduced me to a dreamy man with a handsome old BMW. As I was leaving, I overheard her say to him, "She's nice, you should ask her out."

But nothing happened.

In January I was an usher at my church, St. James's Episcopal Church, and assigned each week to the same aisle. Every Sunday, this new dreamy visitor would come in and sit alone in the same place at the back of the church. Every Sunday, I would think of some casual thing to say after church, but he always left during the last hymn. I didn’t realize that he was in real estate and had open houses to coordinate.

Toward the end of the month he needed a date for a Saturday night ball game and couldn’t remember my name. He called the mechanic’s wife and she gave him my number. When I answered he said,” Hi, this is Joe Willis. I don’t know if you remember me.” I replied, “I’ve been taking your money every Sunday for three weeks!”

I already had plans that Saturday, but the next Sunday, I got a twenty in the collection plate!

After that, we had coffee. Next, we had lunch. And then he called to see if I wanted to “play” on Saturday. He picked me up and asked me where I’d like to go. “Let’s go find snow,” I replied. So we drove on Virginia back roads, along the Blue Ridge Park Parkway and ended up at the Peaks of Otter for a pot of tea in front a roaring fire with snow flurries outside! That lovely BMW served us well that day, although it had no heat. Fortunately, Joe had a lap robe and we forgave the mechanic. We came back through Charlottesville, had a romantic dinner and continued what our friends called the date that never ended!