Captured m ments

A photo album featuring touching, refreshing, long-lasting and true love found in our neighborhood

Story by Christina Hughes Babb | Portrait by Kim Leeson

Most of you romantics out there have a favorite photo of your Valentine. Some keep those treasured images close to their heart, maybe in a locket. Others proudly display them in a pretty frame on the living room wall. And some of those photos are so darn heartwarming or hilarious that they must be shared with the audience of the neighborhood’s most popular magazine (that’s us, right?). To the subjects and senders of said snapshots we offer a hearty “Cheers!”

Pat ’sPhillip

Pat Metcalf Jackson’s favorite photo of her husband shows him wearing some silly headgear. This is why it means so much:

When Pat runs around White Rock Lake on a Saturday morning, she talks to some 50 people. A popular longtime member of the Dallas Running Club, she seems to know every jogger and cyclist on the road. Phillip Jackson moved to Dallas from Waco in 2008 to be closer to his grandchildren. A marathon runner, he joined the DRC for the training program. The polar opposite of Pat, Phillip speaks softly and trains, with seriousness, under the radar.

“We met but did not run in the same group, so we didn’t talk much at first,” Pat recalls.

At 46, Pat says, she had all but given up on the idea of marriage.

“I called myself a freak of nature, to mean that I was unusual, not that I was weird,” she says. “I didn’t always like it, but I was pretty happy and OK with staying single.”

Then she and some friends decided to train for an Olympic-distance triathlon. Pat says she casually asked Phillip if he wanted to join. He did. And then they were together seemingly all the time.

“When you are training for that big of a race, you spend a lot of time training. Three-hour runs, five-hour bike rides. You really can bond with a person.”

Pat liked Phillip and, as she got to know him, was becoming more interested, she says, but it wasn’t until last Oct. 31 that she felt the sting of Cupid’s arrow.

“The running club met on Halloween, and they said we should wear costumes,” Pat recalls. “I’ll wear anything. I was ready with a Goldilocks getup worn in a [previous themed] race. And I had a spare set of bear ears.”

When Phillip agreed without hesitation to don the bear ears and wore them throughout the 10-plus-mile run, she knew he was the one.

“Yeah. When he put on those bear ears, I knew it was true love.”

After that the relationship moved swiftly. He proposed the next March (at White Rock Lake) and they married at Winfrey Point the following November. Both performed well in the triathlon and honeymooned in Costa Rica.

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Dale ’sAnne

Dale Conwell’s favorite photo of his love, Anne, under different circumstances could have been his least favorite and most embarrassing picture. Let us explain:

In 1984, Dale leased a billboard overlooking Greenville Avenue — above the

“I used her last name and only my first just in case she said no, to avoid any further embarrassment and humiliation.” old Bowley & Wilson, across from Ozona and ordered the words “Anne Fletcher will you marry me? Love, Dale” scrawled across it.

The billboard idea was fun, though nerve-wracking. For one, it took two drive-bys before Anne noticed the sign.

“It came as a surprise to her, since we never talked about marriage before this,” Dale says.

As for him, “I used her last name and only my first just in case she said no, to avoid any further embarrassment and humiliation.”

She said yes. But Dale had one more unforgettable nuptial antic up his sleeve. Enter bonus photo no. 2 (see it on the Table of Contents, p. 6).

For the actual wedding, Dale’s big responsibility was securing transportation via limousine from the chapel to the reception.

“At the time, my co-workers and I dined religiously at the now-defunct Mr. Chicken restaurant. I asked the owner, Buddy, if I could rent the Mr. Chicken mobile (in lieu of a limo). It took some convincing, but he finally let me. No one but the two of us knew about it,” Dale recalls.

“To say the least, everyone was quite surprised when this unique automobile showed up outside beautiful Perkins Chapel on SMU’s stunning campus to cart us away.”

To prove he was both witty and intelligent, Dale also hired a real limo and driver, much to the relief of the bride (and her mother, who decidedly was not a Mr. Chicken fan).

“This was the right move, since the chicken mobile was used to deliver food and the interior smelled like chicken. Of course.”