Weather

Local News

   ___________
 

___________
 
AD RATES
___________
 

National News

Dixie and Paul Yakes in their Hawaiian Paradise. ~ The former Dixie Lynn Foster, her mom Jerrie Akin and sister Rita Shell were on a three-day cruise to Grand Bahama Island when Air Force aviator Paul Yakes, cruising with his 15-year-old daughter Jennifer, set his sights on Dixie, recognizing her as his one true love with her first “hello”. The couple moved to Hawaii after their marriage.

Paul Yakes was beside himself with frustration. He had long since put aside his own loneliness; his professional duties left little time for a personal life, anyway. What spare time he had, he devoted to the privilege and responsibility of being the single-father of fifteen-year-old Jennifer who, "as a teenager," he says, "was required to dispute nearly every word that left my mouth."

An aviator in the U.S. Air Force, then stationed at Offutt Air Force base near Omaha, Nebraska, Paul had traveled the world - places like Moscow, Beijing, Warsaw, Athens, plus many cities he had since forgotten as well as others he wished he could forget. Recalling the fun and adventure of his travels, he brainstormed that a cruise could be just the ticket to bring him closer to his daughter.

"I thought some quality time alone with her would be good," he reflects, "I knew I would have to act soon or miss the opportunity forever. Her interests were changing daily and I saw her going from my little girl to, well something else; something far removed from the innocence we fathers see in those little girls."

The surprise of a Caribbean cruise - three days and two nights cruising out to Grand Bahama Island from Fort Lauderdale, Florida - was enough to get her attention, but after Paul's military duty forced the pair to change their plans not just once, but twice, her interest waned, as Paul admits, "Jennifer saw it as yet another disappointment."

When the cruise date was finally established, fully two months later than originally planned, Jennifer became excited once again when she realized she would have to miss a week of school for the trip. As an added bonus to make up for the delays, Paul made arrangements to go to Sea World in Orlando at the end of the cruise.

The day finally arrived and the father-daughter duo left Omaha, flying directly to Fort Lauderdale where they spent the evening exploring before heading for the port the next morning.

"My first impression of the cruise ship was that it was pretty small," recalls Paul, who notes the small size of the ship meant there were fewer people aboard and increased opportunities to "accidentally" encounter the same people time and again.

When the purser opened the door to show the Yakes their cabin, all three realized immediately a mistake had been made, as there was only one queen-sized bed in the room. Paul and Jennifer spent the next few hours waiting while the necessary adjustment in their cabin assignment was made.

The change meant more than just a new room for the duo; it altered their dinner arrangements as well. "Some cruise lines have two primary dinner seatings; an early dinner and late dinner seating," Paul explains, "After making that change, we finally got to our cabin and, fortunately, still had time to get ready for the late dinner seating."

Jennifer busied herself in a fun exploration of the ship, her energy directed toward, her father declares, "the possibility of meeting some cute boys." After she had dressed up accordingly, the pair made their way to the dinner line just outside the dining room, where those in line waited for the early diners to finish their meal.

"It was in that line that I first laid eyes on my future bride," Paul sighs. "There she was - right in front of me - with her sister and her mother. Little did I know then that the love of my life was only three feet away. I can still remember the way she had her hair pinned up. I remember the dress she wore; a simple black dress with white flowers. Her brown eyes smiled as she said hello in the most beautiful southern accent I have ever heard. My heart started to melt from that very moment, and does so to this very day every time she speaks. That was the most important five seconds of my life, for in it I knew she was the one."

Picking up on the conversation between the three ladies, Paul casually offered a comment of his own, much to the delight of the women. The laughter broke the ice among the newly acquainted group and soon it was time for dinner.

While the ladies were escorted to their assigned table, Paul and Jennifer faced some confusion due to their cabin and dinner reassignment. "We got the full tour of the dining room only to end up at the same table with - you guessed it - these three, beautiful, southern ladies," beams Paul, still baffled by a string of coincidences that was just beginning to become apparent.

Laughing off their astonishment, the five introduced themselves to each other. "That's when I first learned her name; the name of my angel," says Paul, starry-eyed. "Dinner was wonderful, I think, for I had a really hard time keeping my eyes off her. At first she didn't say much but as dinner progressed we were all talking about our jobs and homes and all those things people tend to talk about when they are thrown together in a situation like we were in."

While Paul basked in the glow of his new-found heaven, Jennifer couldn't wait for dinner to end so she could check out the rest of the ship, "for boys, of course," says her dad. Paul reluctantly excused himself to venture with Jennifer to the disco in the belly of the ship. "It wasn't long before I realized she didn't want me around, especially when she spotted two of 'them'," says Paul, rolling his eyes, "Creatures even stranger than a teenage girl - teenage boys! I did my fatherly duty and recited my rules again and then thought that she'd be all right. Where could she go? We were at sea. So I loosened the leash and allowed her to have free run of the ship - with a curfew of course."

Alone now on a cruise ship steaming its way toward Grand Bahama, Paul barely had time to feel sorry for himself when he looked up to find his three dinner companions headed for the disco. After Paul explained how he had lost his daughter to the lures of companions her own age, the ladies invited him to join them. "For the next several hours we talked, danced and just enjoyed the time together," Paul reminisces, "I did not want that evening to end."

The ship cruised through the night as happy memories of the evening finally gave way to dreams. By morning's light, the ship had docked at Grand Bahama Island.

As the last day of the cruise began, snorkeling was the first order of business on the Yakes' agenda. Onboard the busy snorkeling boat, Paul scanned the crowd - there she was again! - too far away for conversation. "We never really got close enough to talk but once we got in the water I made every effort I could to get close to her," Paul admits.

The rest of the day he spent with Jennifer, exploring Grand Bahama's many attractions before heading back to the ship for the evening's special onboard treat, the Captain's dinner, described by Paul as "a special event where the waiters dance and entertain the guests and everyone metaphorically 'lets their hair down'."

"I think we were already comfortable with each other," he smiles, "The conversation was light and friendly. After dinner my daughter took advantage of her last night of freedom and started her quest again, so I joined this wonderful group of ladies once more."

The foursome enjoyed a couple of Las-Vegas style shows, then wound up in the karaoke room where they challenged each other to sing. "No one took the challenge but everyone thought, 'Why not, I'll never see her or him again?' How I wish to this day that they'd sung the song they debated doing for a moment or two - 'Mama, He's Crazy' by the Judds," he says.

As the evening wore on, the group returned to the disco, but soon, Paul recalls, "it was just the two of us, alone in a room full of people and noise. But none of that mattered for she was all I could see or hear. I intended to make the most of every moment I had with this angel; I thought I would never see her again after tonight. We stayed until the disco closed and ended up lounging on one of the decks into the wee hours of the night. It was perfect; there we were lying next to one another on deck chairs, all alone, cruising the beautiful Caribbean beneath the stars. I thought how wonderful it would have been if only we'd met years sooner."

Paul's daydreams were interrupted when his angel's mother appeared. "I think she was checking on her little girl, but did so under the guise of making sure we had our customs forms filled out before we docked back at Ft. Lauderdale," Paul grins.

It was the same form Paul had filled out countless times before during his travels, so he sat beside his angel as she began filling out her form, asking him questions about it along the way.

"My real motive was actually to help myself," he admits. "By doing this I was able to learn her address - or so I thought."

The couple finally said goodnight around 4:00 a.m. and went to their separate cabins. Paul's sleep was restless as the ship relentlessly chugged toward Fort Lauderdale and the final goodbye.

"My heart was heavy because I knew this trip was over and I'd never see her again," Paul relates. "I told her how happy I was to have met her and how much fun I'd had, but I wanted so much to tell her that I wanted to see her again. At that point I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her and kiss her and never let her go. Instead, since we had an audience, we said good-bye and went our separate ways."

The drive to Orlando was long and quiet. "I hardly spoke to my daughter because I was so lost in thought, wondering why I had not told this angel how I felt. I couldn't help but think I had lost my one chance at real happiness," he shares.

Back home, thoughts of her echoed constantly through his mind, until finally he decided, "Why not find her, or at least try?"

"I knew her name and I knew her address - or so I thought," he says. "I tried the Internet and I tried the phone book but I kept coming to dead ends. Finally I wrote a simple note telling her how much I enjoyed my time with her and how I wished we'd had more. I also included my telephone number, just in case she wanted to call. I then pressed my memory hard to remember her address from the customs forms and came to the best conclusion I could. I was sure of the street and pretty sure of the town. I looked at a map of Tennessee and found two towns with similar names and decided that she was from McKinnon. Yes, I was sure it was McKinnon. I addressed my letter and sent it, sans zip code. But in the back of my mind I doubted it would ever find her."

Three days later Paul was busily preparing for another flight out of the country when the phone rang. Already halfway out the door, he debated answering it at all.

"Fortunately," he smiles, "I picked up and on the other end of the line I heard my gorgeous angel laughing and saying my name. When she finally settled down she explained the humor - I could imagine her laughter had even brought tears to her eyes - and I could not believe my ears. She had just received my letter that addressed to her; I at least got that part right. The street address was wrong and there was no zip code. Worse, I had addressed it to the wrong town. My angel, my salvation, my Dixie Lynn was not from McKinnon, Tennessee. She was your hometown girl from McKenzie. We laughed together for a while and then both admitted we had made a mistake by not exchanging our numbers, but oh! what a story we now had. I am forever grateful to our postal service for finding the love of my life when I had let her get away so quickly."

Paul Yakes and Dixie Lynn Foster nurtured their relationship by phone for several months until he was finally able to visit her upon his retirement from the Air Force in December 1999.

We were reunited on the day after Christmas when I made my trek from Nebraska to Tennessee - the second best trip I've made in my life. It seemed so natural to hold her.

Our relationship immediately took off. I proposed to her exactly one year after the first time I saw her standing in that late-dinner line on our little three day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale. We married in Huntingdon, Tennessee on October 7, 2000. I have been in love with her ever since and look forward to spending every day of the rest of my life with her.

So... if there is a moral to this love story it is this: There really is such a thing as love at first sight - we are proof of that often-argued fact. There must be such a thing as fate or destiny, and there truly is such a thing as divine intervention. Finally, when you see someone that truly catches your eye, go for it. You may never have another chance. I nearly missed mine.

Advertisements