Friday, February 11, 2011

If you want to know what’s in my heart, you’ll have to break it. Happy Valentine’s Day.

If you want to know what’s in my heart, you’ll have to break it. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Friday, February 11, 2011
By Jared Green

64 year old Larry Johnson is an Air Force brat and a former enlisted NCO with over 20 years in our Nation’s service. This muscular and stocky 5’8” Dallas resident is tough. He braved winters in Germany and Alaska and has explored most of the world in its harshest conditions. But that doesn’t mean that Johnson is made of stone.

The army regimen has prepared Johnson for early mornings, and his 4:30am wake-ups make time for 5am drive-thru runs. To clarify, he’s not ordering Egg McMuffins…every weekday morning Larry Johnson wakes up and prospects the ground below the drive-thru windows at 7 local fast food restaurants. Some days he cobbles together petty change, other days his efforts earn a few dollars more for his piggy bank.

Strange? How about Romantic?

“There are two payoff dates for my sweetie,” says a beaming Johnson, “her birthday and Valentines’ Day”. For years, he’s spent the days leading up to these two celebratory events creating singularly unique ways to deliver the cash gifts.

Two years ago Johnson researched how to make an origami heart from a dollar bill. On Valentine’s morning he showed up at his wife’s lab, where she analyses cancer biopsies, with a large vase holding dozens of long stems, but with no roses. Instead, Larry hung $10 hearts from each branch, totaling more than $600. A few years ago, for her 55th birthday, he made her a tiered birthday cake completely out of five dollar bills and brought it in to their bedroom on her birthday morning. Other gifts have included custom made art boxes, made by the crafty Johnson, stuffed with cash, and one custom birthday card featured the faces of US Grant on 56 fifty dollar bills, each captioned with a Happy Birthday message.

Since his marriage to his wife Sonia some 8 years ago, Johnson estimates that he’s collected nearly $10,000 in change. It’s easy to see the love between the two as she cheerfully teases him about being a work mule, and he complies with a “hee-haw” to acknowledge that he’s her loving mule.

The love affair with his Columbian wife started at work, 10 years ago. He put the word out that he would marry any woman that would build him a shed for his lake house. Sonia never built him a shed, but curiosity did entice her and a chaperone out to Johnson’s former home at Lake Texoma. From there, it was stunning match made in Dallas.

Larry has collected just north of $1,000 for this banner Valentines’ Day. He’s commissioned a pinata’ shop to build a custom heart, tagged with a foreboding line – “If you want to know what’s in my heart, you’ll have to break it.”

Let’s all wish the Johnson’s a wonderful Valentine’s Day, as we try to bring a little romance into the lives of those we love.