OXFORD – She used to see him around Buckfield. She wondered who he was.

So in the summer of 1998, Penny Ferguson asked about Joel Haslett. She heard good things.

Lacking the nerve to walk up and talk to him, she left a bowl of fresh-picked raspberries and a card in his van. The card, which she still has, gave him her number to call if he was interested in meeting for coffee.

He was interested. He found dating awkward when he was young, and dating at mid-life even worse. “I had the worst pickup line: ‘I’m turning 40 and I have four kids at home,'” he said with a laugh.

He called her and went to her apartment for a home-cooked lunch, plus cupcakes to take home to his boys.

He and Penny hit it off.

Their first date was on Streaked Mountain in a 1957 Jeep he borrowed from his son. The following Christmas he proposed.

“I was pregnant with Garrett, but I didn’t expect him to marry me just because I was pregnant,” she said.

Penny was 39 and had a 20-year-old daughter, and was convinced she could not conceive again. She worried about how Joel would take the news.

He took it in stride. They married on Jan. 31, her 40th birthday.

They thought they’d have a small wedding. The Oxford Hills Church of Christ congregation thought differently.

The ceremony was held after the Sunday morning service. The couple and several hundred guests crammed into the church hall for a reception.

“They did the reception and everything. We had a Jeep on our wedding cake,” Penny said. “Raspberries, too.”

Married for eight years, Penny said she enjoys Joel’s quiet nature. She describes him as a giving person who’s easy to live with.

“We like a lot of the same things,” including being family-oriented, he said.

He described Penny as strong and stable. They work together “and pull in the same direction,” he said.

Talking before making decisions and sharing decisions in family meetings has helped their blended family work. And raising the baby together – Garrett just celebrated his 8th birthday – helped them bond.

Joel offered advice for single parents hoping to meet someone: Take your time. “There’s worse things than being alone. A bad marriage is worse.”

Penny still laughs when she reminisces about how they met. “Who can resist raspberries?”