He was perched near the top of a telephone pole.

She was 18.

On Saturday afternoon in Clarksburg, Lois is celebrating that love at the Harrison County Senior Citizens Center with a benefit concert featuring 1960s pop singer Ronnie Dove.

Dove had a string of hits through the 1960s, including "A Little Bit of Heaven" and "One Kiss For Old Time's Sake," but Lois remembers him best for a cover of rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson's "Right or Wrong."

It was her and her husband's favorite song -- but in 1958, when she first met John Alexander, the song hadn't even been written.

Lois remembered, "I had just graduated from high school. I lived in Century, in Barbour County, and my little hometown, we didn't have running water. We didn't have telephones."

One morning, while she was home, a utility truck pulled up on her street.

"It was the most exciting thing that had happened in a long time."

Lois watched the young men get out of the truck and start to work, bringing the telephone line to her neighborhood. Excited, she ran upstairs to get a better look.

One of the men looked back.

"I didn't know that he could see me," Lois said. "He waved."

Shocked, Lois ran back downstairs and told her mother. Her mother just smiled and looked out the window. She spied the utility team foreman.

She told her, "Go ask that little guy if on that boy's break if he could come in for a glass of tea."

Lois did as her mother suggested. The foreman, surprisingly, said yes and Lois was introduced to John T. Alexander. Lois called him Johnny.

"Three months later we got married," she said. "We were just instantly in love."

Johnny used to joke, "My wife never had a bath or used a telephone until she met me."

After they were married, the two got their own place in Harrison County. Johnny kept his job with Bell Atlantic, which usually meant he was away from home during the week.

Lois said, "It was a special time when he'd come home. We'd have our lovin', our fightin' and our goodbyes and that was it. Sunday night he was gone again."

Even with Johnny away so much, the pair wanted to start a family as soon as they could, but having children proved to be difficult.

"I thought I'd never have a baby," Lois said. "And I wanted to, but it just wasn't happening."

Lois miscarried five times, but they kept trying, and over the years, she gave birth to four daughters. She said she got through it with the help of her husband.

"Johnny used to say we weren't oversexed, we were just good Catholics," she laughed.

In 1964, while on the road for the telephone company, Johnny heard a song on the radio by Ronnie Dove. It was a cover of Wanda Jackson's "Right or Wrong." The achingly earnest song cut to his core. He called his wife and asked her if she'd heard it.

It became their song.

"The words were, 'Right or wrong, I'll be with you,'" Lois said. "The lyrics just speak volumes, and it meant so much to us. He was out of town all week, and we were missing each other.

"That song stayed with us for almost 50 years."

Lois still finds herself singing it.

"Sometimes I can barely get through it," she said.

They had a good life together. Johnny got promoted and eventually didn't spend so much time away from home. They raised their daughters together, and in 1991, Johnny retired from the phone company -- at least for a little.

"He was such a good phone man, they brought him back for a special project."

But then the couple ran into a legal dispute over property with a neighbor. Lois said it was a long and stressful period in their lives. It pushed her husband to drink.

Something else changed, too. Johnny began behaving oddly. He got confused.

"His personality changed," Lois said. "He would be very childish. He'd go to the store and buy weird, off-brand things. He wrecked the car. He set fire to the house a couple of times."

In 2003, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His decline was steady and irreversible. Within a couple of years, Johnny was bedridden. His care became too much for Lois to handle.

"He went into three different nursing homes," she said.

His health continued to decline. Johnny could no longer eat solid food. His meals had to be pureed, which she said the nursing home neglected to do. Johnny choked and had to be rushed to the hospital where he withered away.

Johnny died in 2009.

Talking about it, Lois is frequently overcome with emotion. She breaks down.

"I never got to properly say goodbye," she said. "He didn't get a proper send off."

As part of the settlement she received for her husband's death, Lois said she decided she wanted to do something to give her that closure and say goodbye.

"I googled Ronnie Dove and found his phone number," she said. "I called him, and we must have talked for an hour."

She booked the 75-year-old singer to come to Clarksburg this Saturday for a performance at the Harrison County Senior Citizens Center at 500 Main St. from 4 to 8 p.m.

"We've got three bands," she said, brightly. "Johnny Cochran, the fiddle champ, and his band The Trailblazers. We've got Tyler Lash and the new Silver Eagles Band, featuring Ed Queen."

Tickets are $25, with proceeds going to the senior center.