Wing Love Story: Advertising pays off in a big way

By Terry Davis

There is an old saying among advertising reps in the newspaper field, “In good times you should advertise, but in hard times you must advertise.”  In hindsight, this long-time newspaper reporter took that advice from the advertising side of the business when I wrote a column in the summer of 1988 that led me to the woman who has been my wife for 35 years. Or should I say, led her to me?

That summer, I attended our annual company picnic at a county park an hour west of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. I was one of the few solo attendees at what was mostly a family-oriented event.

Patrice and Terry Davis enjoying a quiet evening in the living room of the Pratt Tabor Inn in Red Wing, Minn., during their honeymoon in October 1989.

That sparked a column I wrote, Living Single in a Couple’s World, that spoke to being the odd man out in so many activities.  I was 31, with dating prospects getting slimmer each passing year. Almost all my high school classmates and most of my college fraternity brothers were married and well along in growing their families by then.

A couple weeks later, a letter landed on my desk from a reader. She said the column expressed many of the feelings she had about coming home after work to a quiet, lonely apartment. She said she wished she could at least have a cat, but her building didn’t allow pets.

Being the reporter that I was, I wondered about this woman’s story. Using my investigative skills, (OK, it was mostly looking in a local residents directory) I learned she was an administrative assistant at the 3M plant in town, the company’s largest North American operation. I could see the plant’s office 125 yards across the street from my apartment.

I further knew our sports editor, whose desk was four feet from mine, had a brother who worked in 3M’s office. I called him to ask if he knew my letter writer. Heck, she worked in the next cubicle!

I didn’t call the letter writer immediately. A few weeks later my co-worker’s brother called me. Being the outgoing prankster he was, he had told his co-worker, Patrice, I had called about her, and with her listening a few feet away, he told me that she was crying because I hadn’t called her yet! Of course, that probably almost got him attacked on his end of the conversation.

Well, to save his life I finally called her. You could say it was a blind date from my perspective since she already knew me from reading my columns over the years and seeing my picture attached to it, which should have been enough to scare her off, but thankfully it didn’t.

Our first date was the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail. Things progressed quickly. After all, we were both in our 30s and not getting any younger. I proposed about six months later, after a meal of tacos at my apartment (tacos, it seems, break down a woman’s defenses!).

In October 1989, just a little more than a year after that successful advertising column, we exchanged vows at her home church. Our honeymoon was a fall week spent along the Mississippi River staying at the Pratt-Tabor Inn in Red Wing and Minnesota’s oldest (1854) hotel in Wabasha (of Grumpy Old Men movie fame). The Anderson House was known for providing a cat to spend the night in your room upon request. They had 20 to choose from. Remembering her letter, of course we wanted a cat!

We spent our 35th anniversary a few months ago at the Anderson House – but this time cats were no longer offered. Without that 1988 column my life would likely have been drastically different, and not for the better. Remember, you must advertise in hard times!