On The Road To Different Times

Waking up in the quaint motel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike the next morning we discovered two feet of snow on the ground.  Good thing we had stopped for the night.  Even though it was the part of the country where road crews hardly let a snowflake lay on the roads longer than two minutes it would have been a tough drive.  Besides we were not supposed to be back at the house until sometime that Tuesday anyway.

It was a beautiful drive back to Detroit.  The sun was out, the roads were clear and the newly fallen snow made everything look peaceful.  Living north of the Mason-Dixon line had turned me into a person who loved winter and thought there could never be enough snow. It was, however, going to be nice to go home since Wally nor I had been home for ten days.                                                                                                   

 Pulling up in the driveway it looked pretty  much just like the garage with the house attached to it as when I had left but there was certainly a different feel to it knowing no one else would be there.  Well let's say that there were no people but we were greeted by Sylvester and Elvis, the two cats.   They were very glad to see their people but that never seems to last very long.  They were no doubt disturbed by things in the house changing.  Cats have an inborn reaction to have to investigate anything that is out of place. Put a piece of paper on the floor and they spend an hour sneaking up on it, finally sniffing and are 
never sure why it appeared.

I sort of felt like one of the cats as I toured the house to see what furniture had made the move.  Not too bad, family room sofa, kitchen table and chairs, bedroom furniture and a few pots, pans and dishes were gone.  I
would have thought that more than that would have been gone or that something I really cared about would be missing.  My guess the apartment was small and Dennis was not really thinking but
just trying to get out.  The answering machine informed me that he would be by after work to trade cars - oh boy and there were three calls about potential jobs for me which was a hooray.

Dennis showed up about 5:30 for the switch of cars I had dreaded all afternoon.  He didn't look too happy as Wally and I met him on the porch.  He had that look like he wanted to discuss something with me but with Wally there I think he knew better.  We had never really argued in front of the boys before and now was certainly not the time to start.  There was an exchange of a few pleasantries, he talked to Wally for a bit and then handed my keys to me and left. Interesting that he did not offer nor did I ask where he moved to or a phone number if I needed to reach him. He did make plans to see Wally the following Saturday which was fine.

The weeks after Thanksgiving into Christmas slid by rather quickly.  Wally was happy back in school with his friends and in Cub Scouts.  I was really busy as everyone wants to totally redecorate their house before Christmas. Of course we were still going skating every Wednesday night and some Sunday afternoons.  The Wednesday night sessions were followed by a large group of us going to the Big Boy Restaurant across the street.  I never realized that putting ranch dressing on french fries was so popular.  Not one of my favorites as I am a ketchup sort of person.  When I could manage it with work I went on Tuesday and/or Thursday mornings with the adults who used skating as a replacement for Mall Walking.  I was a pretty nice group of people.  Funny thing about the skating rink was that we nicknamed it "As The Wheels Turn".  Always seemed to be some good piece of gossip about some of the skaters and who was currently paired up with whom.

I had picked up or dropped off Wally at Dennis' several times and if Wes was home he was certainly hiding. Dennis wanted Wally on Christmas Day which I had no problem with.  Wally was funny in that he never said much about his Dad or Wes.  Wally only tells you what he wants to and leaves out anything that is or he thinks would be upsetting to you.
That Christmas he headed off with presents for his Dad and brother.  When he came home he did not look so good.  He said he had thrown up and his stomach still hurt.  When I asked him a few questions I found out quite a bit I did not know.

Evidently when Dennis started disappearing from the house back in the early fall he was going to some divorce recovery meeting at a local church. That in itself was interesting since in the twenty years we had been married he only set foot in a church for weddings or funerals. By chance in this group was a lady whose husband had run off with the secretary and left her with three children.  Dennis' trip over Labor Day with Wes was actually to go to some lake with her family.  Of course he needed six days to move out of the house over Thanksgiving and needed my Bronco.  He needed to Bronco as  they were going up north and the Bronco was great in the snow and I guess he somehow managed to move all the stuff on Monday and Tuesday although I never could picture that.

Maybe he thought if he told me he was seeing someone I would be upset.  Little did he know that it was a relief not to have him around every night after I filed for divorce. Perhaps if I had known before the mysterious drawing of the dead bird I would not have gone to the attorney and had him thrown out of the house. I also would have stopped washing and ironing his work shirts months before. He could have taken them to the cleaners or let her iron them up.

So when Wally came home Christmas afternoon with an upset stomach I made the instant decision to put a little humor into the situation.  I quizzed him on what he had eaten.  It was the usual Christmas dinner stuff except for green peas. Personally I never served green peas at Christmas since Green Bean Casserole is much better. So I told Wally that perhaps she was trying to poison him with green peas. His little eyes got big and I could tell that he was beginning to think the green peas were what made him sick. Needless to say I do not think he ever ate green peas at her house again. It got much worse through the years than peas but I always made a humorous side to everything that happened to him from then on.

Things got more interesting after the first of the year.  I was asked out on a date.  I had no idea whether to go or not since I had not been on a date in twenty years.  My attorney called an said our final court date for the divorce was the end of the month.

Then there was always the question of what happened to Barney.

I Should Have Owned A Moving Company or At Least A Truck

                                                      Moving, Moving, Moving

If anyone has read my profile you probably notice that I have a tendency to jump into things before I really pay attention to all the particulars of the situation.  I am afraid that has been true all my life, even to this day.  But that is also why I think it has been an exciting and fun roller coaster ride.  Somewhere through the years I decided that I had amazing "springback".  Think of one of those spring type doorstops. No matter how much you try to bend or force it down it just pops right back up.

After a less than desirable wedding and honeymoon getting settled in Farmington, New Mexico was not easy.  Farmington was an oil boom town on the edge of the Navajo Reservation and although it may be a tourist destination now it certainly was not in 1966.  Dennis had made no friends in the seven months he had been living there and working for Mid-Continent Oil and Supply and I don't remember meeting a single person except some Jehovah Witnesses that came to the door once.  But we did not live there long as he was transferred to the main office in Fort Worth three weeks after we got there. Let's see - married on January 28th, moved to Farmington and moved to Ft. Worth on February 21st. 

I have totally blocked the move to Ft. Worth out of my memory but I am assuming we must have rented a truck as there was no way we could do the Okie/VW routine with his stuff too.  In typical Dennis fashion we made the 800 mile trip in one day as staying in a motel was a waste of time and money.  One night in a motel in Ft. Worth and then rented a furnished apartment the next morning.  Since Mid-Continent's office was downtown it was important to find a location close.  Wow, we found one four blocks south of the huge Post Office and I-30 and only ten city blocks from his office. 

It was actually not a bad apartment for $65.00 a month and it had a swimming pool. I took Dennis to work each morning and with a map of Ft. Worth and the phone book in the car I toured the city then rushed home to fix dinner before I went to pick him up.  When the weather got warmer and other tenants had parties at the pool in the evening Dennis decided it was not a nice place to live.

By some stoke of luck the owners of the apartments had a duplex only three blocks further south. Still close to downtown and closer to John Peter Smith Hospital.  We were entertained all night by the sound of sirens from both ambulances and police cars.  There was even a nice policeman who came to check on us often which gave us the idea that maybe the neighborhood was less than desirable.  The duplex was really nice and much larger than the apartment.  There was only one small problem in that it had a water cooler instead of an air conditioner.   It was a particularly rainy, muggy summer and by August there was a nice coat of black mold on the bedroom walls. Time to move - again.

                                                            The Moldy Place

I can remember looking at only one place again for this move.  It was another duplex one block south of East Lancaster in a nice older neighborhood.  It had a garage (with a dirt floor), a big yard and no furniture. We managed to find a cute 1950's round top refrigerator for $90.00 and an antique bedroom set for $50.00.  That got us moved in....what more do you need? After a few weeks of curse words about not having any more furniture Dennis's Mom, Alpha, came down and one Saturday while Dennis was at an Air Force Reserve meeting we went shopping. Garage sales and thrift stores came in handy.
When he arrived home there was a kitchen table and chairs, sofa, a chair, end tables and lamps. I always liked Dennis's Mom coming to visit as we had fun together and Dennis tended to not use bad words in front of her.

                                                            The Cute Place

So, let's see where we are at:

Married the end of January and by the middle of August we had moved four times. Is this a sign someone is not happy anyplace he lives?

 The VW was on it's third clutch when the car was only a year old since someone drove it like it was a 327 with a four on the floor.

We had not met anyone except people who wanted us to go to their church (told all of them I was Jewish) and the new next door neighbors. The neighbors did not have a car so the garage was all ours.  We nicknamed them Two-Ton-Tillie and Country Coy.  Two-Ton ran the car wash down the street and Coy made Ranch Style Beans at the bean factory.  According to Two-Ton all Coy would eat was taters and beans. We tried not to be too friendly with them or to put it bluntly, there were no dinner parties.

Oh, and the constant cockroach problem was because they lived at Two-Ton's but smelled the gourmet meals from our place and scrambled over. Guess the roaches were tired of Ranch Style Beans.

We got a cute little American Spitz puppy.  I loved it since it didn't yell at me but it barked a lot so Dennis gave it away.  Then there was a kitten, Duke, that we both adored that adopted a litter of kittens from a bad mother cat. Dennis hated the mother cat and kittens so he took all of them to the pound.  Duke got sick and passed away.  Then we found a little German Shepard at a junk yard and named him Oscar.  He was fun and cute but as he got bigger Dennis did not like him either so I think he went to the pound. Not doing well with pets.

u

                                          Duke and Daiquiri

I had a job in a department store for a few months but the hours were not the same as Dennis's and there was no dinner on the table at 5:00 everyday.  He decided I should go to Arlington State College in September of 1966 and finish getting a degree.  It seems really silly that I would have agreed to become an English teacher so I could have summers off.  Maybe that song from Bye, Bye Birdie was stuck in my head.  Gads, I still know all the words.

Going to school meant we needed another car. One Saturday we bought a 1940 Ford pickup. It was beautiful but after we got it home Dennis discovered it had copper tubing for brakes lines. We took it back and found a 1961 Chevy that looked good but when it started up you could not see the car for all the white smoke coming out of the engine. It was some minor problem that Dennis was able to fix.

For fun Dennis tried building model airplanes you fly.  He would sit for hours gluing the thin paper on the struts and then we would go to Forest Park on Sundays to fly them. Well, sort of fly them.  Seems like everyone he built took off, went straight up and then crashed straight down.  I think three times ended that hobby.  I made him go roller skating at this really cool outdoor rink one night and thirty minutes into the session he informed me we were never skating again.(No, HE was never skating again. It did not mean I was not skating again.)  Dancing did not ever happen. So we spent weekends watching drag racing at Green Valley Raceway from the spectator stands or running home to Warner to his Mom's house to go fishing.....ugh!

To top off the wonderful year of 1966 my brother Paul and Joan got a divorce. Mother had me come home on the bus sometime before we had a second car to try to talk brother Kenny out of marrying an older girl with two children right after he graduated from high school. I have to confess I did not work too hard at trying to change his mind. To really top the year off after Kenny got married Mother filed for divorce, locked Dad out of the house without telling him and never spoke to him again.

Like the Elton John song - I'm Still Standing - not defeated yet.  Being the eternal optimist things would get better. After all, isn't the first year of marriage an adjustment period?

The Honeymoon

                                                  The Honeymoon Destination

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Honeymoon as 1: a period of harmony immediately following a marriage 2: a period of unusual harmony especially following the establishment of a new relationship 3: a trip or a vacation taken by a newly married couple. From my experience the first two definitions with the word "harmony" do not quite seem to fit.  Let's go with number 3. a trip or a vacation taken by a newly married couple.  There is a noticeable omission of any adjectives like romantic or harmonious.  Humorous and eventful fit better.

The wedding took place at 10:00 AM, the reception followed across town at my home and by 12:30 PM we were off on the trip to Red River, New Mexico.  I have attended weddings and receptions that started at 2:00 in the afternoon and ended at 2:00 in the morning so this was a pretty quick exit.  It was, however, most important to Dennis that we get to Amarillo by nightfall.  Best laid plans?

From Muskogee to Amarillo is quite a trip in a VW packed to the point where Dennis and I barely fit in plus four suitcases on the luggage rack on top of the car.  Adding to the loss of aerodynamics of the car there was a thirty mile an hour headwind on the steady incline going west.  Perhaps fifty miles or so into the trip and due to the little channels that run along the top and down to the back bumper the luggage rack sled all the way down the back of the car. That made it necessary to reposition the luggage rack on top of the car, purchase some sash cord and tie it to the front bumper. This was done with quite a few words I had not used or actually heard or used in my life.  Those words that cause a parent to wash your mouth out with soap or get a swift hit on your backside. With the luggage rack back in position we were on our way again looking very much like Okies going west.

Travelling at the maximum speed of forty miles an hour it was dark when we arrived in Oklahoma City. Since it had been a long, tiring, mostly silent afternoon in the car we stopped for the night.  The next morning there was still a headwind from the west but we got off to an early start with only a minor glitch.  Who puts their sunglasses in the passenger seat?  Not paying any attention entering the car I accidentally sat on them. This caused more words and expressions similar to the luggage rack problem all the way to Amarillo when Dennis finally stopped to purchase some new ones.  Whoops, remember the old Blue Laws when you could not buy anything on Sunday's that were not a life and death matter?  It was Sunday and they could not understand at numerous stores this was a life and death matter. 

I remember dinner in Springer, New Mexico consisting of a root beer and cheese and crackers. Then finally arriving in Red River very late at night.  Dennis had made reservations for an A-frame cabin that slept eight and came complete with a kitchen. Kitchens are important on Honeymoons as who would want to eat out all the time.  After all I was a pretty good cook and home cooked meals three times a day would save money and be better than cheese and crackers.

Up bright and early the next morning to hit the slopes.  Dennis had skied several times in Durango, Colorado while living in Farmington.  I had never skied before but how hard could it be?  Just put the boots and skiing equipment on and go get on the Palmer lift.  The Palmer lift is the bar that comes up behind you and you just sit down on it.  Dennis got on first to show me how and went up the mountain.  I was ready to go, I thought, but when the lift up came up and hit me from behind I tumbled off into the snow. I laid there in the snow trying to get up to no avail. This was my first lesson in character traits of my new husband.  Everything is done NOW, not in ten minutes or even two seconds but Now.  So in going skiing for the first time someone puts the boots on you, buckles on the ski's and off you go. Do not take the time to learn how to get the silly things off.  Dennis finally came down the  mountain and asked me how I could be so stupid.  After I finally stopped crying I went to ski school where I remained the rest of the day far away from Dennis.  We broke from skiing so I could cook lunch and of course I got to cook dinner before falling asleep.

The second day I really did not feel very well even though I cooked breakfast before going back to ski school for the morning.  After  a home cooked lunch I tackled the lift and the mountain all by myself.  I found that skiing was really very simple if you applied all your roller skating techniques of edging to it.  Also realized that after a day and a half in ski school I was a much better skier than Dennis. Maybe I wasn't quite so stupid after all.

By the end of the day I really did not feel well at all.  I knew I was running a temperature but had chills at the same time. Good thing I only knew how to cook for four people so there were leftovers for Dennis to eat for dinner.  He could not convince me that if I ate something I would feel better.  Was he just being nice, wanted me to throw up or just wanted me to go into the kitchen and cook?  Who knows but I can guarantee he ate leftovers.

                                  The Very Sick Snow Bunny

Things did not look very good the next morning as I was still running a temperature and ached all over.  Even though we were supposed to stay another day we packed up and headed for Farmington.  All I can remember about the 231 mile trip that should have taken four and a half hours is that it was dark before we got to Farmington.  We passed snow plowed up on the sides of the highway as tall as the car and it was so cold the heater did not seem to be working.  How can you run a temperature and be freezing to death?  

First stop in Farmington was the emergency room where it was determined that I had a temperature of 105 degrees and probably the flu.  Loaded down with medicine we checked into a motel for the night.
Here is where I have to explain that Dennis had not found a place for us to live and his rule in life was not to stay in a motel/hotel any longer than necessary.  So bright and early the next morning while I still felt like I had been run over by a truck we went looking for a place to live.

                    Guess we couldn't afford to stay too many nights

Do I really remember us taking the first place we looked at?  There were not a lot of places for rent due to an oil boom in the area and there was a duplex that was cheap and furnished.  Furnished is an interesting description.   It had the lovely western pine furniture that looked like it had been made from old wagon wheels and upholstered in a beautiful western orange print of cowboys roping steers.  I guess I could say it was clean but not "Hansen" clean.  We unloaded the VW and discovered that the heater had been working great all the way from Red River.  In fact it had worked so well that it melted Dennis's dress shoes. Thank heavens it did not melt my extensive vinyl LP collection.

Having the car unloaded meant we could go pick up the boxes from Railway Express and go to the grocery store so I could once again do my thing in the kitchen.  By the end of the day we were settled into our new home with food in the kitchen so I guess you could say the honeymoon was over even though I was waiting for it to start.  I never read a wedding announcement in the paper again or looked at some one's honeymoon pictures when I didn't really wonder if any compared to mine.

What could possibly happen next...............

I Should Have Eloped

Maybe Newton's first law of motion describes my agreeing to marry Dennis.  An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. No unbalanced force appeared on the horizon and once I agreed to marry him there was no way of going back.

My brother Kenny actually introduced Dennis and I the summer before I was a senior and he was a student teacher in Industrial Arts at my high school.  Kenny was enthralled with the fact that he had a dragster and we drove down to Warner one day to meet him. Dennis was nice looking, six years older than I and we did not date until February when his student teaching was done.  He followed the rules of not dating students.

After his student teaching was done he took a job teaching in Copan, Oklahoma and was home every weekend.  I was pretty active in school activities and we actually didn't date that much as I was busy.  Add to that the fact I went out with other people at the same time.  He tried to get me to marry him and not go to Stephens.  He ended up going to work for an oil field supply company that summer and moved to Farmington, New Mexico.  In the year and a half before we got married I had seen him a total of eleven dates. If that implies that I really knew very little about him, it's right.

Mother moved into the wedding planner mode.  That was definitely not her calling.  Forget looking at the latest copy of Bride's Magazine.  Let's keep this simple and get it over with was more her idea.  A short wedding dress, described in the newspaper clipping, as waltz length was nothing but ugly.  The attendants dresses were made by Dennis's mother of aqua satin even uglier. And just who plans a wedding for 10:00 on a Saturday morning in January and does the reception at home instead of at the church?  Who invites relatives we have never seen to a daughter's wedding? You guessed - my Mother.

There were three wedding showers all of which I totally blocked out of my mind as I dislike opening presents in front of other people.  I must have received enough towels and crocheted pot holders to open my own store. One shower I do remember as it was given by Ruth Winner from my carpool and Linda Reavis and they spiked the punch.  My Dad loved having me come home quite tipsy. Had to be on my best behavior for the one in Warner and the one Joan, my sister-in-law, gave for me.  
Was I really supposed to be excited about getting an iron or a silver tea service?

Dennis came home a few days before the wedding.  He sold his car, a 1965 Impala, to Kenny and we were keeping my Volkswagen with the cheap car payments.  Moving to New Mexico meant getting all my stuff packed up and sent by railway express.  All my stuff meant all my clothes, books and all those little scraps of memorabilia that I put into scrapbooks as I knew anything left at home would be gone.  Dennis pitched a horrible fit at the $57.00 it cost to send it.  Hmm....didn't know he had a temper.  Then he fainted when we went to have the blood tests done.  Did he faint over the thought of the $57.00 or the sight of his own blood?  I think both.

Pam

Pam came from Columbia to be my Maid of Honor but Cathie couldn't make it from Lubbock so Dennis's sister, Judy, was the bridesmaid.  We got married in the Chapel of Grace Episcopal Church which was a problem because most of Dennis's relatives thought they would be forever condemned to Hell if they set foot in an Episcopal Church.  Added to the problem of the church was the fact that although it was a sunny day at 10:00 in the morning it was 2 degrees with a thirty mile an hour wind out of the west. One of those days it would be better to stay at home by the fireplace so not many people attended.

After the short wedding with very few in attendance everyone moved to our house for the even shorter reception. I must add here that Judy is a little fuzzy in the official wedding photograph as she was so hung over she could hardly keep her eyes open and I am quite sure Pam was still wondering why I was marrying this guy.  We had packed the Volkswagen with most of the stuff the day before and had to go buy a luggage rack to put on top in order to get clothes and extra wedding presents to New Mexico.  All we would have needed would have been a mattress tied on top to look like the Grapes of Wrath. Kenny made matters worse by writing on the car and doing the tin can thing.

Paul, Little Don and The Bride

While I was changing clothes into the lovely going away outfit the phone rang for me.  It was Western Union with a telegram for me.  I must say that is the only telegram I have received in my life.  It said,    
"Congratulations and all the happiness in life. Stop. Just remember I will always love you." Stop. Barney.  Stunned, dumbfounded, total disbelief!  Who does that?  

Was this after the telegram?

Newton's Law suddenly turned into Murphy's Law as anything that could go wrong did.  If it sounds like the wedding went perhaps a bit poorly wait until you hear about the Honeymoon to Red River, New Mexico to go skiing. Priceless!