By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
There’s a saying about winning a man’s heart by pleasing his stomach, but if you try with the wrong baked goods, how many chances do you get to impress a man? For Terri Cole (now Terri O’Connell), there was at least a third chance to get it right.
Paul O’Connell doesn’t like cupcakes and he really doesn’t like key lime pie. When Terri offered a cupcake for his 57th birthday. He said, “I don’t want a cupcake. Let’s do something like maybe a picnic at the beach.”
It would be their first “real date,” and with Terri wanting to make a great first impression, she brought a key lime tart she had picked up just for him. Even though he does not like key lime pie, he smiled and thanked her for her effort and ate every bit of it while sitting where the turf meets the surf out in the San Luis Pass area.
Paul and Terri had both been looking for a soul mate using online dating sites during the pandemic last summer. She sent him an ice breaker in reference to one of his photos with him on his motorcycle.
“I wrote, there’s nothing like being on 2 wheels,” said Terri, who is also a motorcycle enthusiast.
He was in Vermont, not paying attention to online dating, thus, her note sat in a cloud unread for several weeks. When he got back to Texas and read the message, he responded, “What do you ride?”
She was quick to reply, “I’m looking to buy a fat boy,” From there the two were chatting via the online dating site for a couple hours, then took the conversation to e-mail.
Paul had lost his phone and could only communicate through a computer, so the two once spent 13 hours sending each other written communications sharing pieces of their lives with one another. They then agreed to meet the next evening at Kelly’s in Alvin for dinner.
At the end of the meal, they said good-bye, and exchanged a kiss on the cheek. “She sped off so fast, I didn’t know if she was interested in me,” said Paul.
“I couldn’t tell if he liked me either,” said Terri.
His birthday was the next day and that is when Terri tried her best to be a temptress with her culinary art skills.
Within a few weeks of meeting Paul, Terri was ready to be with him forever. This wasn’t something she took lightly. Michael, her husband of 36 years passed away in April 2019.
Terri had nursed Michael through 20 years of cancer. “When my husband went into
hospice, he told me he wanted me to go on living. I didn’t want to, but I promised him I would,” Terri said.
Feeling Paul was going to be a permanent fixture in her life, Terri made it a point to be sure her mother met him. She passed away about a month after the couple met.
By this March Paul and Terri were chatting in the kitchen about what was next in their relationship, “He got on his knee and asked me to marry him,” said Terri.
Paul’s best friend, Glenn Gross, was shocked when he learned they were engaged, “Paul (who had been divorced since 1993) was always the single guy in our biker group. I didn’t think he would ever get married again,” said Gross.
Terri and Paul took their wedding vows on June 12, 2021, at Dickinson First United Methodist Church. Their reception was held in the garage at their residence in Santa Fe. “I’m so happy that Paul makes her feel alive and brings her joy,” said Melissa Morgan, Terri’s daughter.
Though Paul had sworn he would never marry again, he is glad to have given it a second whirl. “It’s been amazing. It’s been fun. It’s been fulfilling,” he said.
