#头条创作挑战赛#
Thousands of miles of marriage photos
Yuan Tingzhang
It was the early summer of 1977 of the twentieth century, and my cousin wrote to me that my parents had asked me to introduce a girlfriend and ask me to send him a photo.
After thinking twice, I felt that I had also joined the army and left my hometown, and went to the snowy plateau, in the hometown of Mount Everest, and the border land of Shigatse in Tibet, and served in the military service (two years of compulsory military service in those years) for four and a half years.
I found a black-and-white photo taken in the Lhasa photo studio, sandwiched it in a letterhead, and sent it to my cousin, who teaches at a school in my hometown.
More than a month later, I returned to the military camp in Shigatse and received a letter from a stranger.
I opened the letter with curiosity and speculation, and read it in one go, and it turned out to be a love introduction letter written by a beautiful woman and a black and white photo.
In the letter, she said: She is a student of Teacher Wang, and she is the girlfriend that Teacher Wang introduced to me, and Teacher Wang asked her to write to me first.
She introduced herself: Ms. Wang also asked her classmates to bring her letter and my photo. He said that after graduating from junior high school, under the recommendation of the brigade and the commune, he went to the county agricultural machinery training class to learn the driving skills of large tractors.
After the Dragon Boat Festival, I took the time to come to my house, met my parents and relatives, and was very happy to be warmly welcomed. The purpose of this letter is to inquire about my conditions for her, do you have any opinions?
What touched me even more was that she said: The first thing I do when I get up every morning is to open the drawer and comb my hair, and I have to take out the photo of my handsome guy in military uniform to watch and enjoy. Hey, what a girl who is amorous and has a unique love style!
After reading the letter from my girlfriend for the first time in my life, and taking a closer look at the photos of my girlfriend, I felt that I still had to get it, so I was quite happy in my heart.
Taking advantage of the interval between overhauling and maintaining vehicles, I replied to my girlfriend with a letter: I talked about some basic situations in the army, and the automobile troops stationed in Shigatse, Tibet, on the snowy plateau, have been galloping on the thousand-mile border defense transportation line for many months as adults, ensuring the supply of logistics and military supplies for the border troops, and serving the construction of the troops' industrialization and industrialization. He also talked about the plateau automobile soldiers, which are a high-risk technical branch of the army, so that his girlfriend should think twice, and then think about it clearly, if he wants to marry a plateau automobile soldier who is far away from thousands of mountains and rivers, he must have the ideological preparation of each side to endure hardships and suffering.
After replying to my girlfriend's letter and sending it, I haven't heard from me for a few months, which is really sad!
In order to relieve the boredom and pastime, when staying at the military station at night, untie the backpack before going to bed, and quietly take out the photo of the girlfriend under the mattress to take a look, and enjoy it to relieve the sorrow in the heart.
A few months later, when the winter on the snowy plateau came, I received another letter from my cousin, who said: The woman has taken the time to visit your house many times, one is to visit your parents; The second is to find out your opinion of her, etc. Finally, he also said: It has been five years since you left home, and your elderly parents also hope that you will implement the marriage event as soon as possible.
In order to fulfill the expectation of my parents and men getting married, some of my fellow comrades-in-arms who joined the army in the same year also visited their relatives and returned to the army.
According to the rules of the automobile unit stationed on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, in the winter at the end of each year, because the mountains are closed by heavy snow, it is difficult to drive, and the troops have to collect their vehicles for political and ideological study and education, military training, automobile theory study, and driving technology training and assessment. It is easier to take this free time to take a vacation. So my leave application was also approved by the leadership.
When I went to Yingzhi to go through the formalities for vacation, Li Fuxi, political commissar of Fu (a native of Henan), told the person in charge: It is difficult for our plateau troops to take a special leave and solve their personal problems, so we try our best to give each officer and soldier on leave a marriage introduction certificate that is sufficient for marriage.
Everything is ready only to owe the east wind, because the traffic in Tibet was very difficult back then, it was difficult to find a hitchhike in Lhasa or Liuyuan Railway Station in Gansu Province and Chengdu in Sichuan.
One afternoon, a veteran of Langzhong Wang in my company told me: There is a Sichuan Cangxi County automobile soldier in the frontier regiment who wants to send a dilapidated and obsolete ambulance to Chengdu to hand it in, and there are only the driver's wife and two cadres on leave, and the driver wants to find a driver from our department on vacation to drive to Chengdu in exchange.
Oh, it's really "stepping on the iron shoes and nowhere to find, it takes no effort to get it", I sat in the cab with the driver's wife, and could change the driving vehicle to start from Shigatse, Houzang, and pass through the Kajara Glacier in the Gangdis Mountains at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters, Yangzhuoyong Lake, Shannan, Gacha, and Milin to Nyingchi Bayi Town, and began to gallop on the long Sichuan-Tibet Highway.
The higher the mountains and the glaciers, I don't know how much hardship I have endured, how much tiredness I have suffered, I have slept in the wind and rain, I have slept in the middle of the night, how many mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes have been crushed, and after more than ten days of hardship, overcoming thousands of difficulties and dangers, driving more than 2,600 kilometers, I arrived at the second office of Chengdu Sichuan Office in the afternoon of one day.
I couldn't wait to rush to Chengdu North Railway Station, bought a ticket to Chongqing in the evening, rushed to Jianyang late at night to get off the train and stay, the next morning, and caught the only passenger vehicle every day after traveling more than 40 kilometers, I got off the train in the middle and rushed to my hometown over the mountains and mountains with a thick fog over my head.
At the beginning of December, I quietly returned to my hometown early in the morning, and my parents, sister-in-law, family and fellow villagers were all surprised!
I told them that I was approved by the army to go home for vacation, especially my parents and family were very happy, and that it was the fifth anniversary of my separation from home, and that I had grown from a thin boy who was weak and had a weight difference of three pounds as a soldier, to a qualified soldier with a height of 1.65 meters and a chariot to run the world.
In the morning, the old mother called her sister-in-law to tell the introducer: I am back. In the afternoon, my cousin-in-law rushed to my girlfriend's house, which was more than ten miles away, to report the news, and my girlfriend came back with a longing for me.
My parents took the opportunity to tell me about my girlfriend's situation: my girlfriend came to my house three times and helped with the work, and they were also very satisfied with this prospective daughter-in-law, and of course in the end they still had to cherish my decision after meeting.
In the winter of Sichuan, night falls very quickly, and it is usually dark after five o'clock.
About six o'clock, my cousin-in-law led my girlfriend mother and daughter to my house. At that time, the poor families in the country were also poor and lacked materials, the people in the city were supplied with tickets, and the rural people were left to fend for themselves, unable to buy anything, and there was no oil and water pork at home, so they could only cook a pot of noodles to eat with the host and guests, which was a good thing to entertain distinguished guests.
After dinner, the family sat under the dim diesel lamp, and the introducer began to talk about the situation of both men and women, and asked for our opinions: I met my girlfriend for the first time, the facial features were good, the person was still stretching and shaking, and the rural people could drive large tractors and other jobs, and they still felt capable, so they agreed and had no opinion.
But his girlfriend just sat stupidly and didn't say anything. Later, I listened to her: he was very satisfied with my conditions in all aspects, and felt that I was thin and my face was dark, and she knew that we lived in the high altitude of the snowy plateau all the year round, and the lack of oxygen was very harsh in the climatic environment, and in the cold ice and snow, driving a vehicle for nearly 3,000 kilometers before returning to the hometown of Jianyang, Xiongzhou, Tianfu, with a pleasant climate.
In the stalemate of the atmosphere, my mother adopted the agitation method, she said: My son only has 40 days of vacation, and you do not agree to this marriage. If you don't agree, there are girls who will wait until they are there, and people can come to my house tomorrow for a blind date.
My girlfriend listened to my mother's words, and probably thought that it would be difficult to find a good opportunity if she missed it, so she agreed to approve it, and my girlfriend's mother also said: The land in this place is so big, and the conditions are still okay.
After the discussion of the male and female pairs, the matchmaking of the introducer's cousin and sister-in-law, a happy marriage, was determined.
During the six months from the beginning of the fifth lunar month to the engagement in the winter month, my girlfriend first sent me a letter and a photo, and I only replied to the woman. It's really a letter, a photo, and a marriage. It's really a thousand miles of marriage photos!
(All illustrations in this article are provided by the author)
About the Author:
Yuan Tingzhang: Enlisted in November 1972 and successively served as a soldier in the Second Independent Automobile Battalion of the Logistics Department of the Tibet Military Region, serving as the coach of the second company and the coaching team. In 1981, the 2nd Independent Automobile Battalion was withdrawn, and the 3rd Company of the 16th Automobile Regiment Training Battalion was transferred to serve as the instructor. After returning to the local government at the end of 1983, he worked as a police car driver in the Public Security Bureau, and retired in 2008.
Author: Yuan Tingzhang