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Scribe
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vermilion, Ohio
Gender: Male
Posts: 51
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Redheads, Ya Gotta Love Em (Part 1)
I'll tell you going in that this is long. It's a project I started about a year ago. This is the third edit and it need at least a couple more. I know about the tense problem. What I'm really after is an overall opinion. Does it have legs? Might it be publishable on down the road?
I will post part two in a few days if there is any interest,
#1 A Tentative Start
My life started at about 8:30 PM on September 20, 1960. I didn’t know it at the time. After all, I was only eighteen.
But even before I get to that I’d better tell you a little about myself and what I’m trying to do here. See, it’s all her fault. She said a couple of weeks ago, “Who would want to be nineteen again?” I’m in the process of cleaning our basement and a couple of weeks before her comment I’d found all the letters she wrote me. I’d just set them aside as something to be looked at later. But, when she made the nineteen again comment, I remembered the letters and the fact that we really started writing to each other when we were nineteen.
More on that later. I said my life started on September 20 1960. However, I was born, in Cleveland Ohio, June 1, 1942. My earliest memories are painful. I recall biting an electric cord when I was about three. I can still remember the feel of my teeth and gums buzzing. When I was maybe a few months older I fell on a heating grate and badly burned my right leg. For years you could see the pattern of the grate on my leg. Then, when I was four I learned about fire ants. I sat down to watch an ant hill and they didn’t like me disturbing their privacy.
My memories of grade school are better, but jumbled. That is, I mostly can’t really remember if a particular event happened in 2nd grade, or 3rd, or maybe 4th grade. In fact, that’s also true of my junior high years. To a lesser extent it also applies to high school and college, though I am, I think, much more accurate with those.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but all I really got out of grade school was how to lie successfully. Further, that lesson was learned in 1st grade. More on that later.
Junior High is a blur. It is my considered adult opinion that junior high students could be locked in the building in September, fed through a slot under the doors, and let out in June. I think they would learn just as much and society in general would be better off for their absence. They are really just hormones in clothes. I think I was typical.
I do have a lot of memories from high school, though there is still that problem of which year for many of them. I was a mediocre student, not from lack of ability, but from lack of desire. Grades didn’t mean anything to me, never have, still don’t. (This will create problems for me down the line.) I learned from every teacher, but what I learned wasn't always what was tested. I finished in the middle third of my class. I played football two years, ran track a year, was on the golf team three years, sang in the school choir and was active in dramatics. I also was very active in the Walther League, a Lutheran church youth group.
#2 A Timid Self-evaluation.
What I want to do in this is see if I can find the key to how and why I ended up being married to the most wonderful woman on earth. I’m going to try to be as honest and forthcoming as I can. Some of that will hurt, but I really would like to know.
I think, for you to understand me, I need to describe the way I see myself. OK, where would you start for yourself? Let’s see, what character traits come to mind when I think of me? Well, I’m smart, (Likely not as smart as I think I am.) witty, self confident, a bit vain, stubborn, slow to anger, a little selfish, honest, (to an extent), a good conversationalist, empathetic, and politically conservative.
On rereading that last paragraph it’s not what I want to say. It’s true, as far as it goes, but it isn’t me. Nothing there makes it unique. In fact, it’s the uniqueness that is at the heart of what I’m trying to do. Why do I love her? Why does she love me? Everyone on Earth has the same basic equipment, so why did I know I had to marry her? (Or she me?)
There’s more. I don’t lie very often. However, I love a good story, and to achieve that I’ll add things so the story is better. Not exaggerations, just improvements. I’m not a hypocrite. However, I find it much easier to go along rather than fight the current, even when I know it’s wrong. I’m not lazy, but I have little use for work for its own sake, and I’m willing to let other people do things that I could have done myself. Further, if I see no value in a job I have to do, I don’t do it very well. I’m overweight. True, but I’m trying to do something about it.
Everything in that last paragraph is true, but it’s still not me. The me, who makes jokes at the most solemn occasions or thinks of something ridiculous when everyone else is very serious. In fact, takes very few things seriously at all. Yet also, I wear my heart on my sleeve. It’s easy to hurt me because I take so much personally. I’m easy to hurt, but I have a very high pain threshold so I don’t show the hurt in public. I sometimes cry at night when I’m alone. I fear and love God. My intentions far outweigh my accomplishments.
Closer, let’s see, I'm not afraid of much of anything except losing her. I don’t worry about things I can’t control. Hell, I often don’t worry about things I can control. I think long term. By that I mean, for example, why rake leaves? They’ll be gone in the spring. If not then the world would be buried in hundred foot leaf piles. That, I guess, comes back to the “If a job isn’t worth doing it’s not worth doing well” philosophy I mentioned earlier. I usually operate on the “worst possible consequence” system. That means what it says. I judge actions and tasks based on what is the worst thing that could happen if I don’t do something, or do it wrong? The answer to that question determines what gets done and what gets left undone.
No, no, I’m getting off track. I’ll try one more time. I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. I had the best parents ever, I have a wonderful sister, and I’m married to the most wonderful woman ever. We love each other. We have the two finest sons ever born, and they each married beautiful talented women and have given me the four best grandsons who ever lived. I spent most of my working career doing a job I loved. I got paid to teach and talk about things I am interested in. I would have done the talking part for free. I've seldom suffered from lack of money. While I’m not rich, I can afford most of the things I want. I did nothing to deserve any of those things. As I said, I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.
I’ll leave it there for now.
#3 It Started This Way (September 20, 1960))
A freshman mixer? I really didn’t want to go. It was also a dance I guess. Anyhow, it sounded dull, and besides, I had a girl friend. Still, Wally nagged and I gave in. I’d told him that was pretty good at picking up girls and he said he wasn’t and needed my help. So OK, what could it hurt? I’d find a couple girls, give him his choice, help him get comfortable, then leave him and ditch the other girl. Like I said, I already had a girl friend.
We got to the mixer about 8:15 or so. It had started at 7:30 and was to end at 10:00. When we walked into the Student Union there were a lot of people in the main lobby, and even more in the large assembly room. Usually there was only one set of doors into the assembly room but for the mixer they had opened another set and those were the ones we went through.
Inside, the room was crowded and no one seemed to be dancing. I told Wally to pick out the girl he wanted to meet and I’d take it from there. I should add I had exaggerated my ability to pick up girls. My real forte was talking to girls after I’d met them. Anyway, there was a line of floor to ceiling pillars which started near the door and ran to the back wall. I think there were four pillars. As we walked between the first and second pillar I saw three girls standing together talking, a good looking brunette, a cute redhead, and another brunette with her back to us so I couldn’t see her face. I pointed them out to Wally but he said there were three of them and only two of us. I shrugged and walked on.
We went to the end of the line of pillars and started back up the other side. I pointed out a few other girls but for one reason or another Wally said keep looking. About ten minutes passed before we got back to the second pillar from the door. I saw that two of the girls who I'd first noticed were still there, the third was gone. It was about 8:30 and, since I didn’t want to prowl the room all night I told him, correctly, that those two were the best we’d seen. Wally shrugged and agreed.
Even though I'd told Wally I'd give him his choice I said, “I’ll take the redhead.” Although I didn’t know it, my life was about to become much more interesting.
#4 First Meeting
I didn’t know what I was going to say as we walked the four or five steps to the two girls. They both looked at us expectantly so I had to say something. I just started talking. Something like, “I wonder if you two can help us? We were going to do our laundry today but we couldn’t figure out how to plug in our washboard.”
Now pause here a minute, realize that these were the first words I ever spoke to the woman who has been my wife for the last 43 years. “How do you plug in a washboard?” Give me a break. Still, as a pickup line I suspect it may be unique. Fortunately we were at a mixer where people came to pick up or be picked up. At any rate, it worked. We’ve kept a washboard hanging on the wall just about from the time we were married. It’s there now.
Trying to remember a first impression back over the course of forty-seven years is a bit difficult, but here is what I remember. I'd thought she was cute when I first had seen her from maybe fifteen feet away. Up close I saw that I’d been right. She was cute. She had bronze red hair, lots of freckles, really a lot of freckles, a narrow face, and dark blue eyes. She was about six inches shorter that me, which made her 5’5” or so. She was wearing a charcoal jumper over a nicely filled white blouse. Her shoes were slip-ons with some kind of shinny metal or glass decoration. That’s what I got in the first two seconds. Then she smiled. If there really is a Cupid that’s when he hit me with his first arrow. Just a little arrow, I didn’t even feel it.
Now it’s hard to explain this, but that smile is the thing that I most remember about our first meeting. We stood and talked for maybe forty five minutes to an hour, and during that whole time I just wanted to say things which brought back that smile. I have no idea what we talked about, but I remember that smile like it was only yesterday. I’m sure Wally and Lee (The other girl.) were there too, but I don’t remember them at all.
Her name was Marilyn. She had dimples. They could be registered as dangerous weapons. The one on her right cheek grows very deep when she smiles. Her eyebrows go up just a fraction, her lips part just enough to show her straight white teeth, and her whole face radiates like—as if—well, I can’t say just what . I do know that even now, forty-seven years later, I still love that smile and I still try to say and do things which call it out.
Back to our first meeting. About 9:30 the girls said maybe they should start back to their dorm. Wally and I walked them back. We, that is Marilyn and I, were walking side by side when our shoulders bumped and I put my arm around her. She didn’t pull away so we walked the rest of the way to her dorm with my arm around her waist. We said goodnight, I got one more smile, and Wally and I went back to our own dorm.
All the way back to our dorm Wally kept on about how I’d found us the two best girls in the room (They were.) and how he wished he could talk to girls the way I could. It was almost embarrassing later to hear him telling Bob, (our other roommate) what I had done. Almost.
#5 Backing Up for a Minute.
Before going any further here I’ll clear up a few loose ends. I already said I had a girlfriend. That would have been Rachel. A senior at my old high school, a majorette, a good music student, and a very nice girl whom I treated very, very badly. If there’s one thing about my relationship with Marilyn that I could change it would be my treatment of Rachel. More on that later.
I’ll get the early part of my “social” life out of the way quickly. Ironically, the first girl I ever kissed in any serious way was a girl named Carol who I met at the Walther League Convention in Oklahoma City in 1957. She was from Oklahoma. I say ironically because Marilyn is also from Oklahoma and attended the same convention.
I had a good social life, mostly with the Walther League and a few close friends from school. We did a lot of Walther League activities. I was one of the District officers and got to meet kids from 20 different churches. My first serious attachment was in 1958. I was a junior in High School, when I met the Gorski sisters. They were from another church and I met Annie at a district meeting. We sort of hit it off and I asked her out. She accepted and we dated several times. Usually double dating with her sister Monica, Mon for short. An odd thing happened here. The sisters made a trade. Annie liked me well enough but liked Mon’s boyfriend better. His name was Larry. Mon had no problems with that. Anyhow, one night I got to the Gorski house to pick up Annie. Larry was already there and when we went to the car Mon got in front with me and Annie got in the back with Larry. A most unusual evening.
For some reason the switch worked and everyone was happy. Mon and I dated for about seven or eight months. She was the first girl I ever “made out” with. It was at a party in a funeral home, New Years Eve 1958. We broke up in May, much the way we’d started. One day I called and she said she couldn’t go out with me as she already had a date with Larry. She asked if I’d like to ask Annie, who, she was sure, would agree. It was getting too weird for me so I said no. I still saw them at Walther League meetings but they were only friends from then on.
During the summer of 1959 and into the early part of my senior year I dated several girls. I wasn’t looking for another “relationship” and I fully intended to enjoy variety during my last year of high school.
In the fall of my senior year I was in a school play. I played the villain in Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. At a party after one of the rehearsals I was introduced to Rachel by Kathy McKinley. (You'll hear a bit more about Kathy McKinley later.) I’d seen Rachel around school but I’d never known her. I asked her out for New Year’s Eve and she said yes, but her mother wouldn’t let her go with me. Her mother didn’t like me very well. I never knew why. (Make a note of that, there is some more irony later)
A friend of mine, Ken, came up with a way to get around her mother. He went up to Rachel and said, “What time should I pick you up?” She didn’t know what he was talking about, but he convinced her he'd asked her to go out with him on New Years Eve and she had said OK. She told her mother that Ken had bought tickets to a show and planned to take her to a nice restaurant. Her mother finally said she could go, but she had to be home by midnight. (On New Year’s Eve?!?) Ken picked her up and drove to the school parking lot where I was waiting with Ken’s real date. Rachel was very surprised, but also happy.
We almost blew it when I took her home and we got there at 12:10 AM. Her mother came storming out of the house, rushed around the car, pulled open the door, and dragged Rachel out and into the house without saying a word to me. Rachel had the presence of mind to tell her mother that Ken had gotten a little drunk and had made several advances on her. She said I’d left my own date to bring her home when Ken refused to do it because he didn’t want to leave the party. Her mother still didn’t like me, but after that she did let us date.
We dated for the next eight months. Sometime in March we exchanged class rings. Both my parents told me it was not a good idea to go off to college while going steady with a girl from home. I tried. I bought a turquoise ring and on our last date before I left for college in the morning I planned to give her the new ring and her class ring and to get my class ring back. It didn’t work. She cried and ended up with both rings. Our necking also went further than ever before. (NOTE: That is about a lascivious as this will ever get.) In those days we would have called it 1st base.
So, I found myself at college, 300 miles from home, a steady girl back home, and I’d just picked up a redhead. What now?
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