There have been more romantic words uttered when two kindred spirit’s eyes first meet, but when a match is made, a match is made.
Almost 52 years ago, a 19-year-old Garry Nargang began working in a seniors home in Melfort, SK. While only there for a short time, already had a bit of a reputation as a tippler. Fran worked in the office at the facility, and had heard a little bit about the new guy in the kitchen.
One summer afternoon she was doing payroll and handing out pay cheques.
“I took him his pay cheque and said:
“Now you can go out and get drunk!”
Fran laughs. “Those were the first words I said to him.”
It seemed to make an impression, even though neither of them were of age to drink in Saskatchewan yet.
“That’s where my brother would come in,” recalls Fran.
One day at work, a few of the office girls were going to the lake for the afternoon, and mentioned to Garry that he ought to ask Fran to come along. Being a little bit coy, he said he would, but he wasn’t prepared to walk all the way to the office to do it.
A few minutes later, the girls carried Fran to the kitchen, and he asked, she accepted.
After work he came and picked her up for their first date.
He had finished work at 2 in the afternoon and was waiting at 4 when she finished work, already with a few stout in him, and asked if she was ready to go.
Well, she still needed to go home and get ready, and she lived 13 miles out of town. He took her home to the farm. For a city slicker from Moose Jaw he had never brought a girl home to a log house before. None the less, she changed and the were off.
It seems like the city slicker didn’t know all the roads either, because he missed the turn in his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle (Garry called it his camper because the seats folded flat) and hit the ditch. A farmer pulled them out and the made it to the lake.
Garry was smitten. He began phoning every night, and he would drive all the way to the farm to pick her up for coffee, or to park beside a certain set of granaries.
“The guy that owns the land with the granaries would get mad at another guy and give him heck because he thought it was this other fellow because of the tire tracks,” laughs Fran. “But it was us.”
In fact, it was one of those evenings in October, by the granaries, when they became engaged. By February they were married.
In June, they went on their honeymoon, and it was a family affair.
“We couldn’t afford to do too much on our own so we took my mom and my brother along and they paid part of it,” said Fran. They travelled to Ontario and Wisconsin to visit family.
The couple left Melfort in 1967 when Garry began work in the kitchen at the federal penitentiary. They came to Drumheller in 1970, and in 1986 they opened the Old Grouch’s at the former Western Chev building in downtown Drumheller. They have been at their current location for 22 years.
This February 27, they will be celebrating 51 years.
When asked what the secret is to this everlasting love, Fran replies tolerance.
Garry laughs and says “knowing when to shut up.”
A few years ago, a friend gave them a set of boxing gloves, but they have never been used. Despite the moniker of “Old Grouch,” he says they seldom fight. He says a relationship takes work.
“In this day and age no one works at it. They expect everything to sail along and be joyful, but at the first bump in the road they quit.”
Happy Valentine’s Day, now you can go and get drunk!
