Where these Winter Texans' lifelong love began

There is a beginning to every great love story. In the new Valley Life series The Way We Met, Winter Texan couples in the Rio Grande Valley share the origins of their own tales of true love. To nominate a couple for this series, send an e-mail to Amy Nichol Smith at asmith@themonitor.com.

When Beverly Carrizales met her husband, she was dating his best friend.

In the summer of 1965, Beverly was seeing her boyfriend off at a going-away party for him at his home in Dallas. He had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was deploying that week. His best friend Al was there. Beverly admits there was an immediate attraction between the two of them, but she was loyal and never acted on her infatuation.

For nearly two months, Beverly wrote to her boyfriend in the Air Force. It was through their letters they decided to end things.

One warm August night, Beverly was on a date at a club. Al saw Beverly as she made her way to the restroom. He followed her and waited outside the door. When she came out, he asked if she remembered him. She said she did.

"He wanted to know if his friend and I had broken up," Beverly said. "He hadn’t talked to him."

She said they had, and Al asked Beverly to join him for a cup of coffee. She told him she was on a date and couldn’t leave the club.

"He at least talked me into giving him my phone number, though," she said.

Al called her the very next day, and that night they went to a movie.

For three months, Al and Beverly dated - they went to more movies, fancy French restaurants and parties at friends’ houses. On Halloween that year, everything changed.

Beverly was dressed in white, in an empire-waist princess gown she made herself. Al was dressed in black. The two sat on the stairs indoors at a friend’s Halloween costume party, talking. Al casually asked Beverly to marry him. There was no ring, and he didn’t drop to one knee. They sat side by side when he proposed. She said yes.

The next day, they went to a jewelry store where Beverly picked out the ring of her choice. They didn’t intend to have a long engagement, but it would be a few months, at least - Al’s parents were on vacation.

Al moved out of his old apartment and rented another where the new couple would start their lives together. Several days were spent moving both of their belongings into the new place. On the final day, the two sat on the sofa in the living room, exhausted.

"He looked at me and said, ‘How about we get married in the morning?’" Beverly said.

They called a couple friends, got the required blood test and met on the steps of the old red Dallas county courthouse the next day.Beverly wore a pink suit.

"We just didn’t want to wait anymore," she said.

Beverly soon gave up her job as a hairdresser, and she and Al worked together through the years in grocery stores they owned in North Texas.

"We’ve been hip to hip in everything we’ve done," Beverly said.

Now Al and Beverly have retired and spend extended winters in South Texas at the Pharr South mobile home park, after only vacationing here for four years.The two will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary on Monday, Nov. 16.

The key to making a relationship work as long as they have, Beverly said, is to have a sense of humor.

"And separate bathrooms can’t hurt."

Amy Nichol Smith covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4420.