THERE’S A NEW TELEVISION SERIES IN PRODUCTION called “How I Met Your Dad,” a takeoff on the series “How I Met Your Mother.” The way one’s parents got together is the start of one’s own life story.

These warm June days leading up to Father’s Day provide a convenient excuse to tell the story of how I met my children’s father. This is one tale I’ve waited to share until I could do so with gratitude, if not humor. Most of it is true.

Kurt Vonnegut advised writers to start a story as close as possible to the ending. I eventually parted ways with my children’s father, but not before what Zorba the Greek called “the whole disaster” — marriage and children.
When this story began, my biological clock ticked and talked, telling me it was time to reconsider my plan to remain single and childless. In response, I decided I wanted a loving family.

* * *

A LONG, LONG TIME AGO ON A DARK AND NEARLY STORMY NIGHT, I accidentally crossed paths with Mark, a man I had already met a number of times in the course of our respective professions. He worked for the governor and I worked in television news.

A few months before this meeting, I watched my close friend from college walk up the aisle. I remembered the pact we made in our senior year of college. Lois and I vowed to pursue our passion for art at all costs. Now she would be a ceramic artist, a potter married to an advertising salesman. Me? I was a television journalist and had achieved some success in a small, if frozen, pond.

Raindrops splashed on the wooden sidewalk as I walked home along Juneau’s Main Street. Under the full moon, the whitecaps on Gastineau Channel looked like jumping fish. Cold air swirled around my legs, swept up through my long navy blue coat, chilling my muscles.

The wind swept away the night’s black clouds, letting the moon illuminate the snowy, cathedral-like peaks that framed the waterside town. The steep mountains dropped into a saltwater channel formed by a submerged, once glaciated valley. Juneau’s beauty amazed me.

Wood-framed, colorfully painted houses, bars, shops and government buildings hugged the hillsides. When I passed the Baranof, a new version of the song titled “You Can’t Hurry Love,” made famous by the Supremes 16 years earlier, drifted out of the hotel bar.

How long would I have to wait for love? Following politicians down corridors had made me a cynic. The longer I worked as a television reporter, the more I saw of politics, the more I wondered if there was any point in what I was doing. I didn’t want to delay starting a family. I wanted a loving home with two children — my own. There may still be a point, but something else seemed more important now.

I had firmly rejected marriage and children as a goal when I came of age in the 1970s. Approaching 30, I reconsidered my life plan to remain single.

Marriage? Yes. Children? Yes. For the first time in a long time, the thought of settling down intrigued me.

“Watch your step,” said a familiar male voice. Looking up, I saw three men wearing beige raincoats over their dark suits. The trio had stopped as our paths crossed. I nearly bumped into a member of the governor’s cabinet and two of his clones.

“Evening, Kristine,” he said, stepping toward me while the other two men smiled and nodded their greetings. “Care to join us for dinner? Have you eaten?”

“Sorry. I just finished dinner at the Fiddlehead. Some other time?”

“When?” he asked, his brown eyes meeting mine. His receding hairline and the sparkle in his eyes reminded me of the comedian Billy Crystal.

I held his gaze. “Tomorrow’s a new day.” Reflexively, I looked down at his shoes. The polished black wingtips shimmered in the light from of the street lamps. Mom had always said, “You can judge a man by his shoes. What kind of work he does, how well he takes care of things …”

He said, “I’ll give you a ring.”

“Good night,” I answered, smiling and turning into the wind. As I continued downhill, I considered the possibilities. Walking past the Red Dog Saloon and the Alaska Hotel, I experienced a moment of recognition that my future might soon change.

When he called the next day and asked me out to dinner, I replied, “Any night but Friday.”

“Friday it is,” he said.

Oh, no, I thought, realizing I would have to cancel dinner with another man to go out on my first date with Mark.

We had a whirlwind courtship. He gave me a ring, a 17-year marriage, a beloved daughter and an adored son. I’m grateful for the memories.

Kristine Mietzner organizes writing workshops and leads writing groups when she’s not out walking her golden retriever Max. She can be reached at kristine2770@yahoo.com.