I have always had to laugh when someone says "Things always work out for the best". Mother's adaptation of that was "Things always work out but not always the way you want them to". The summer of 1965 she worked very hard to make sure her statement was the correct one as far as I was concerned.
When it finally dawned on me the end of July without an official declaration that I was not going back to Stephens in the fall I took a little trip to Tahlequah on my day off. Northeastern State College was located there and I filled out an application for the fall semester. Within the same week I had a letter back granting me acceptance pending their receipt of my high school and college transcripts. Not really what I wanted to do but if I waited any longer there would be no chance to get into any school. I had heard the lecture from the time I was in grade school that there was sixteen years of school not twelve.
Barney arrived on the first Sunday in August after his summer school was over. He was a firm believer in that there were some important things you did not discuss on the phone or in letters. Since all of our conversations avoided important topics we had lots to talk about.
Actually that was a pretty good rule especially since those were the days when you paid dearly for long distance calls.
I went first and explained the situation with Mother and the chance I would not get to come back to Columbia in the fall. Since there was no logical explanation it was hard to figure out a reason so I could only guess. I did not feel like the expense was logical, maybe my having fun was a problem, she really did not like Cathie and maybe my relationship with him bothered her. He listened and asked some questions, then it was his turn.
He had been accepted at Northwestern for the MBA program pending him finishing up two classes at Missouri in the fall. They would accept any graduate classes towards his Maters that he added to his schedule that fall so he would be in Columbia until January. That was terrific news because that is what he wanted to do all along. The bad news was about Sarah. When he originally told me about her he also said it was going to be tough to get her to believe their relationship was over.
Barney had never really dated anyone besides Sarah before I came along. He said that he had not been happy in the relationship with her for a year before we met but just had not broken up with her. There had been threats of suicide when he finally did. Three weeks ago she had attempted suicide blaming him for the reason. Knowing how he was really a "Dudley Doright" type of a person I knew he was having a hard time with it. By this time it was really late and we were both tired.
The best thing to do was to sleep on it and come up with an answer in the morning. Sounds like a Meatloaf song.
The next morning we drove up to Tenkiller Lake and spent most of the day trying to figure things out. My problems seemed small compared to his. He offered to pay my tuition for me to go back to Stephens but it was, after all, a girl's school and parents were in charge of their daughters. That was not going to work at all. So then he asked me to marry him.
I would have loved to have said yes. But I was concerned about him.
How was he going to feel if Sarah did something drastic? How many
people had he seen jump into a marriage that didn't last. Would we begin to hate each other when goals didn't get met and things got tough? I told him I would always love him and the best thing we should do was to give it some time and things would work out. He said he did not know how he ever had the courage to slide into the booth the night we met but I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He said he fell in love with me on our first crazy date when we walked all over town and would forever love me.
When he dropped me at home that evening to head back to Missouri it was hard to get out of the car. There would be phone calls, letters and flowers but I had no idea it would be more than a decade before I would see him again.
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