John Vaillancourt

 

Thomas Vaillancourt

 

Robert Earl Vaillancourt

 

Michael Thomas Vaillancourt

Kristen Rae Vaillancourt

 

Joseph Michael Vaillancourt

 

                                                  

   

       Michael & Barbara Vaillancourt

       June 1998

 

 

When my parents moved our family to Livonia, MI it was still quite rural. Dirt roads and all.   We even had to drive to the IGA in Redford, MI to do our grocery shopping.   As a result throughout most of grade school all of my classmates were the same from kindergarten to sixth grade.  At the beginning of Mr. Larry Miller's sixth grade class all that changed.  Once we all got settled in our seats we noticed a new kid.  Everyone was whispering and staring at him.

 

Mr. Miller settled us down.  He asked if the new student would tell us his name and where he had moved from.  He immediately jumped to his feet at the side of his desk and told us his name was Mike Vaillancourt and he and his family had moved to Livonia from Flint.

Then class had begun.  Mr. Miller asked a question and several students raised their hands, he call on the new kid, Mike Vaillancourt.  Who again, jumped to his feet at the side of his desk at which point all the kids in the class started laughing.  Boy, these kids from Flint sure are a strange lot, always jumping to their feet every time they wanted to talk.  Mr. Miller quickly reprimanded us for being so rude.  Then he told Mike he didn't have to stand when he was called upon for an answer.

Little did I know then, this new kid, who came from the far off town of Flint,  who jumped to his feet to answer questions and had a gold front tooth (imagine that!) would turn out to be my husband about 20 years later.

 

Of, course, I would have gotten married, had a baby, and gotten a divorce all before we met up again.

 

After my first marriage ended, I had gotten a second job as a waitress in a bar.  One evening a nice dressed man (he was wearing a dress shirt and tie) came in and ordered a beer.  He was cute and seemed so familiar,  when I went to get his order I told the bartender that I was certain I knew him from school but just couldn't remember his name.  He told me told me to tell him.  Oh sure, like that didn't sound like a line..."Don't I know you from somewhere?"  But, I tried it.  Being the warm, sensitive, trusting man that he is, he didn't believe a word I said.  Certain that I was after a tip.  I quickly added that I had gone to school in Livonia, MI.  That started him thinking but NOT trusting, so he told me his name was Chip Snider, the name of another boy that we went to school with.  I sure couldn't put that name with that face.  He asked me which school had I gone to in Livonia and who were some of my teachers.  Then I started rattling off a bunch of schools & teachers' names.  As I said, Livonia was rural but many people started to move into town and they were always building new schools.  After I gave him Washington Elementary to Whittier Jr. High to Frost Jr. High, to Bentley High and finally to graduating from Stevenson High School in 1968 he conceded that I must be telling the truth because he had gone to all those same schools and had many of the same teachers.  He then smiled and said, well my name is really Mike Vaillancourt.  Yep, there it was, that gold tooth.  I remembered him then!  Then I told him, you moved here from Flint to Mr. Miller's class.  We all laughed at you when you stood up at your desk to give answers.  "And I remember your gold tooth too."  Then he had no doubt, I knew him.  He was really perplex that he could not remember me.  Which was good.  I had changed quite a bit since being out of school for almost 10 years.  For the better I might add.

 

Over the next few weeks he started coming to the bar more regularly.  Then he asked me out and the rest is history.  About two years later we were married. Back to that tip thing, he really had a phobia about leaving tips.  In fact, when we were dating, most of the time we went out he turn to me and asked, "Do you have any change for a tip?".  It did make me wonder, here he was an engineer at Ford Motor Company asking me, a single mother, working two jobs, for money for a tip.  But, he was so cute with that gold tooth, I figured I could over look that one flaw.