The New Year 1969

The new year of 1969 dawned with lots of promise for our love. We had a new family, a new car, we both had jobs, and money was not a problem. My employer had to remind me to cash those paychecks, because the folks in payroll needed to resolve the holes in their accounting.

But I came home to find Carolyn crying sometimes, and when I asked what was the problem, she told me that Aunt Laverna Satterfield was calling her up and pushing her to demand that I marry her legally. To me, it was more confirmation that she had pushed us together from the start. I liked her, and I could not fault her for making the match, but I didn’t like to be pushed around by anybody. 

Laverna would by any definition be a “controlling” personality. She liked to be in charge, and enjoyed telling people how they should be living their lives. I asked Carolyn if she trusted me to keep my word and never leave her, and she said yes. But she was caught in the middle between her lover and an aunt whom she also looked up to and loved. I didn’t like the resulting bind she was being put in.

So I called Laverna and told her to stop pushing Carolyn, that our relationship was not her concern now. We were two adults who were making our own decisions, and didn’t need someone else butting in and creating dissension in our marriage.

She got very mad at me, told me how wrong I was and how much Carolyn wanted to be married “for real.” I told her I wanted to hear that from Carolyn herself, and not from her. It was not her role to interpret to me what Carolyn wanted. I also told her that if I came home from work again to find Carolyn crying, I would ban her from calling again ever, even if I had to take out the phone. Then I hung up.

Thus began a couple of months of no contact with her. But she was still in contact with J. T. Morse, Carolyn’s now ex-husband, who was living in Texas now. I don’t know whose idea it was, but she “let us know” that he was considering filing for custody of Darlene, because of our “illicit” relationship. She had no trouble with our relationship as long as it was secret, but the idea of us living together openly offended her sense of decency, I guess.

Carolyn and I discussed what we should do, and I suggested that we should quietly go get the license, just to make sure that Darlene would stay with us. The license wasn’t for us, but for Darlene, whom we didn’t want to lose.

The only people we told were John and Rhonda Rogers, my brother and his wife. We knew he could keep a secret, and we explained why we had decided to get the license. I didn’t want Laverna to have the satisfaction of still being in control of our lives.

After going downtown to the courthouse, medical test results in hand, we got the legal license, and asked if they knew of someone who could perform the ceremony for us. They gave us the name of a retired judge in the town of Orange, California, and I called him and made the arrangements. I think his fee was $50, but it’s been a long time.

We showed up at his ornate Victorian style house on the evening of March 15 with license in hand, and with my brother and his wife and our daughter as witnesses, we participated in a brief ceremony, exchanged our vows, and afterwards we took a few pictures for keepsakes. Then it was handshakes all around, and we left in our cars to go home. 

On the way we saw a Baskin Robbins ice cream store, so on the spur of the moment we turned in and all of us bought banana splits. Carolyn wasn’t sure that Darlene could eat a whole banana split, but I assured her she could eat as much as she wanted and toss the rest, but this was our wedding reception, and it was for her benefit, anyway. She had no trouble eating the whole thing, and was delighted to have her first banana split.

That’s how we came to celebrate two anniversaries, one on November 18 and the other on March 15. Carolyn and I always liked the November date for celebrations, and that’s the one we told everybody else about. But many years later I got into family genealogy and learned that the paper trail is important, too. I can imagine somebody researching our family and running into trouble trying to find our marriage record in the wrong year. But we both know when we first vowed to love each other forever!

The following months went by smoothly, as we settled into our home, and grew closer and closer together. 

The only really exciting event that comes to mind was one Sunday morning we drove down to San Juan Capistrano and turned up toward the mountains, riding on my motorcycle, enjoying the curves on Hwy 74, called the Ortega Highway. There is nothing better than motorcycle riding on twisting mountain roads, and we got too complacent cresting a ridge following a Triumph sports car with the top down, also enjoying the road. When I saw his brake lights come on, I applied my brakes, too, but not hard enough. Then I saw the problem.

Both sides of the road were covered by hundreds of bicycles, riding single file in two lines, and the sports car had hit his brakes hard. As we came over the hill too fast, and light because of the hill, I locked up the brakes, fishtailed wildly first right and then left, and I was picking out a place on the Triumph trunk lid to “pop a wheelie” and crash into. All escape routes were blocked by bicycles. Luckily for us, the guy in the Triumph heard the tires screaming, got off the brakes, and accelerated away, giving me enough extra space to get slowed down.

Carolyn had hung on tight and ducked down, so I'm not sure she saw everything I saw, but she knew that what happened was not cool. I resolved to be more careful in the future, and try to be more responsible, and maybe a little less exuberant. 

Very early in the year, on a weekend when the weather was clear over the Grapevine, Carolyn and I and Darlene drove up to Merced in the car to introduce our family to my mother. My mother liked Carolyn immediately, and Darlene, too. I offered to sleep in a separate bed, since I told her we had vowed to love each other forever, but did not have a license. She told me to sleep where I wanted, and it would be OK with her, even though she had her own preferences. She belonged to the same church as Laverna, but wasn’t nearly as eager to force her beliefs on others.

While we were in Mom’s house on the second day, there was a knock on the door, and standing there was Cathy, my ex-girlfriend. She was smiling, and said she was curious and wanted to meet my new wife. So I called Carolyn and Darlene out to the front room, and introduced them as my wife Carolyn and our daughter, Darlene. After a few brief pleasantries, she thanked me, wished us well, and left. 

Carolyn was mystified at her boldness, and I explained that we had been very close and intimate for over four years, and she knew me well enough to know she would be welcome at my mother’s house. Later, I found out that when I introduced eight year old Darlene as “our daughter” she knew it was permanent, and that I was really gone.

We went over to my grandmother’s house, too. Of course, she also liked Carolyn and Darlene, and assumed we had eloped as she had many years earlier, when, at 25 she eloped into the next county to marry a divorced man she had just met two weeks earlier, and who was nearly twice her age.

As we left her house, Carolyn said we would be seeing her again soon. She calmly said no, she would not be here when we returned, and that the next time we came it would be for her funeral.

Carolyn was very surprised, but she didn’t argue or show her surprise until later, when we were alone. My grandmother was a very plain spoken person, a Jehovah’s Witness, and I wasn’t too surprised.

On April 14th we got word that she had died and we came back up for her funeral. She had been exactly right. 

Now that we had the marriage license my mother seemed a little happier, which was OK with me. (I think John had visited earlier and showed her the pictures he had of our wedding at the judges house.) We stayed overnight at her house again.

We saw Cathy, my former girlfriend, at the funeral for my grandmother, since her great aunt, who had raised her, had rented a house from my grandmother for many years. That circumstance is how we had met years before. At the graveside service, she came over and hugged my mother and then me. She lingered a little too long for Darlene’s comfort, but Carolyn understood and didn’t mind. She knew she was the winner, and she chose to be gracious, not jealous. 

In June, shortly after reaching the top journeyman machinist level, we decided that we both would prefer to live away from the big city. I was sure that the only way out would be to quit my job and get out of town to search for a job in the country. We were both raised in a rural environment, and we sorely missed the peaceful ambience of rural living.

My Uncle Jim Rogers had invited us to come up and visit him sometime at Clearlake Oaks. He had a big house on Clear Lake with its own boat dock, and had several bedrooms and extra room, even with his wife and six children. So I called him and he was happy to invite us in as I looked around northern California for a machinist job. 

We moved out of our house in Midway City, California, in July, leaving what few household possessions we owned behind, to start a new life far away in the north. 

This was to become a pattern in the coming years. We were young, and not ready to settle down yet. There was a big world out there, and we wanted to see it all!

Love and Marriage

(continued from "Out of the Army...")

I started the conversation by asking what her plans were now. I reminded her I still had a girlfriend up north, and wasn’t really free to have another one. (I know that may sound strange to some, since many guys don’t seem to have a limit, but my ethics tell me one at a time.) She said she had a job at K-Mart stocking shelves, and she would be OK for awhile by herself. 

I explained that I was about six months from finishing my apprenticeship at Olympic Screw and Rivet Company and then I would probably call my girlfriend up north and try to talk her into moving down with me, as I would be able to afford a bigger apartment on my journeyman machinist's wages.

Eventually Carolyn asked if we could repeat the experience of that summer, and promised not to get too attached. Looking back now, I’m not sure what we expected, but were we young and naive, or what?

We headed for bed again, but this time she paid a lot more attention to my needs, which was a welcome surprise, because always before it was me trying to get my girl to let me do something for her. We both had a great evening, and then she went back to her house.

It was obvious that she had been studying up on all the variations of sex, and how to please your partner, and I was more impressed than I was willing to admit. For the first time I wasn't in charge of the entertainment, and I loved it!

I had a short discussion with my brother John, who shared the apartment with me, and told him I might have a visitor over now and then, and he promised to excuse himself for a couple of hours if necessary. I think he knew a lot more than I did about what was likely to happen. I seem to only pick up on subtlety if it is administered with a baseball bat. 

The next day Carolyn called and wondered if I would be interested in coming over to her house for dinner after work. I could see this might have some other ramifications, and I asked her if her husband had made it to Oklahoma, and was she sure he hadn’t changed his mind and turned back for California. Well, it seems he had just called her from Oklahoma, and she had told him to stay there and see about a divorce, because she was through with him. 

So I came over to her house for a great enchilada dinner with a tossed salad with avocados, and of course, I stayed the night. I was beginning to like this arrangement. So for the next week I came over every night, because she kept inviting me. One night her daughter Darlene embarrassed her mother by telling me she liked when I came over because the dinner was better than before, when they just heated up TV dinners.

I don’t know how many days it was before I realized I loved Carolyn, and didn’t want it to end. I’m sure it was way longer than than it should have been. When I finally told her one evening, “I think I love you!” she threw her arms around me and said, “I was hoping you would say that!” Then she backed up when she realized I had said the words “I think.” I guess she was afraid I might figure out how hard she had been chasing me. 

Yep, I had it figured out, and I liked it! She chased me until I caught her. Forever!

The next evening, November 18, 1968, I promised her my love for the rest of my life, if she would have me. She made the same promise to me, and we were both ecstatic. 

Having just gotten out of the Army, and left the church of my youth, I was in an anti-authoritarian mood, and really did not want the church or government telling me who I could love and live with. We never did get into the drug scene, but we had some hippie tendencies. I wanted a marriage based on love and trust, not some “ink stains that have dried up on some line.”

I called up my girlfriend in Merced, California, and told her that I was not her boyfriend anymore, and that I had found someone else and fallen in love with her. She was surprised, but didn’t seem as shocked as I expected. I think she had been growing out of our long relationship, also. She asked if she could still exchange letters with me now and then, and I told her that wouldn’t be fair for my lover, and that she was free to find a new boyfriend now. We split on fairly good terms, each of us having loved and learned with each other as we grew up to maturity.

I had a lot of education in a very short time on what it takes to make a marriage. Carolyn gently reminded me that the groceries were getting low since I was eating with them. I actually picked up the hint fairly fast, and I took one of my uncashed paychecks out of the drawer and we went to the grocery store. Nope, three can’t live as cheaply as one, or even two.

Soon thereafter we were pulled over on the 605 Freeway by a California Highway Patrol officer, because we had three people on my motorcycle— me sitting close to the tank, Carolyn in the back, with Darlene squeezed in between. He told us that was illegal and dangerous. and that Darlene had no foot pegs. I explained that we had just gotten married and we did not own a car. He said it was time to buy a car, and if he saw us on the road again, he would ticket us. So we went and bought a brand new red Toyota Corolla station wagon for two thousand bucks. Those were the days!

She had a big yard at her house, and the grass was growing high, so we went to the store and without asking her, I bought a riding lawn mower. She got furious with me, because I was still acting single, I guess. I did not see it, but my brother John was with us, and he saw her take off her old wedding band and throw it across the parking lot. He retrieved it, gave it to me, and told me she was really pissed! I’m still ashamed I had to be told!

After a lot of apologies and some loud discussion, it soon became plain that she wanted a wedding ring from me, even if we hadn’t gotten the license. I had been clueless because I was raised in a religion that did not believe in rings, or jewelry of any kind. We went out the next day and she got a beautiful ring set. Of course, every time I mowed the lawn I had pangs of guilt for being so dense.

I found that the very best part of a marital argument was making up afterward.

I took Carolyn over to meet my father, who lived in a large mobile home park a couple of miles away. He was very happy to meet my new wife, and he didn’t ask too many questions about the marriage ceremony. He knew me too well.

But he was anxious to tell me they were starting square dance lessons that week, and offered to pay if we would go with them. My father Vernon and his wife Ethel had been square dancers for many years, and it looked like fun. The lessons took place in the huge recreation hall in the middle of the park, and there were at least a hundred couples. We had a lot of fun, and soon became dedicated square dancers. Every time we move to a new town, we find out where the square dancers meet and join the club. It’s a great way to meet lots of new friends when you’re the new couple in town.

One day when we were shopping in Huntington Beach, we came across a square dance apparel shop with a beautiful orange dress that was in Carolyn’s size. It was a little expensive, so I told Carolyn that we would have to wait a month before we could afford it. This happened a couple of weeks before Christmas, so we were legitimately short on money. We left without the dress, but the next day after work I stopped at the store and bought the dress with a big crinoline slip to match. The lady in the store wrapped the whole thing in a huge paper bag so I could carry it home on my motorcycle. Take my word for it—it’s not easy to ride a motorcycle with your arms wrapped around big paper sack full of a dress and crinoline slip. I sneaked into the alley and hid it in the back of the garage for Christmas. 

Carolyn told me the next day she had driven by the shop and the dress was gone! She asked the nice lady where the dress was, and she told her someone had bought it the day before. I know she must have had trouble not smiling, because she knew who had bought it, of course. It made a wonderful present on Christmas Day.

 Our daughter Darlene was just as happy with her new bicycle, too. I had assembled it while she was in school, and I got a refrigerator box to put it in, all wrapped up in pretty paper and bows. It was bigger than she was, but when she tore open the end, she could ride it right out into the room.

I had a steep learning curve with our daughter Darlene as well. She was eight years old, worried about the huge changes in her life, and I was worried about all the negative connotations of being the “step-father.” There was also the cultural abyss between her warm Oklahoma family, which I had not experienced yet, and the stiff New England ways of my mother’s family. For years to come we gradually came to an understanding of how I could relate to her without causing fear or anger. We tried to encourage her to visit her Oklahoma father as often as she wanted, and tried to leave her with the knowledge that she had not lost anyone, but now had two families.

I don’t think we really became comfortable until Carolyn had our son Wesley four years later. Darlene asked if she could call me Dad instead of Don, since she knew her new brother would call me Dad. I tried to hold back tears as I told her that would make me very proud. “Of course you can call me Dad!”

Out of my church, out of the Army, and into love.

In 1964 I went to the draft board to change my status from conscientious objector to One-A, Ready to Serve. One year after that I volunteered for the draft, and entered the U. S. Army two weeks later. I had severed ties with the Seventh-day Adventist church, and I was ready to see the world.

Late in 1965, after finishing Basic Training, I was shipped directly to an engine rebuilding depot in Granite City, Illinois, because of my experience in the automotive field, and two months later the whole company was secretly shipped to Okinawa, where we set up shop in some buildings left over from the Korean conflict, I think. We left St. Louis on a special blacked out troop train with all of our rebuilding tools and test equipment wrapped in Cosmoline and on pallets following us on flatcars.

I realized the train was going to go past my house in California, so I looked through my belongings for something to throw into my yard. I found a brand new can of shaving cream, so I wrote a letter to my girlfriend and another one to my mother, taped both messages around the can and when I went by the house at about 10:30 PM I heaved the can over the street and into the yard. Our neighbors found it and gave it to my mother. Real air mail!

The train stopped right on the docks at Oakland Army Terminal in Oakland, CA, and we were marched across the pier and onto our troop ship, the Gen. J. C. Breckinridge. It had been reactivated from the mothball fleet, and was  built before WWI, I think. It was about 650 ft long, and carried two thousand Marines, three thousand Army troops, and twenty seven Navy sailors, who sailed the ship. We were all part of President Johnson’s secret expansion in 1965 of the war in Vietnam.

On the two week journey across the Pacific, I met a couple of men recently graduated from seminaries. We were mutually attracted to each other by our religious background and schooling. One was a Methodist, and the other was Baptist. Both were on fire to convert all those heathen Japanese, and they had their sights on me, too, I’m sure. We broke up the boredom of the long voyage with many lively and spirited debates about Christianity and the Bible. 

Soon after arriving on that island, we found a Buddhist temple near the base at Makiminato and arranged for a meeting and tour by the resident lama. We three came to the temple one evening, and after removing our shoes, we were led through the various elaborately decorated but sparsely furnished rooms, with the lama explaining the functions of the rooms in the temple. We finished in a room with a low table, which we all sat around (pillows were provided out of consideration for our lack of experience at sitting on the floor), and green tea was served to all.

After many expressions of gratitude from us, the lama invited us to ask questions of him about the Buddhist beliefs, and to compare them to Christian beliefs. He asserted that both paths share many thoughts, but differ on others. It seemed he was as anxious to convert us as at least two of us were to convert him!

I won’t go through the arguments that followed through several weeks of visits. The main problem for our side was the lama didn’t believe in miracles, which meant the Bible was just a collection of ancient fables, not to be taken at face value. He asked if we would believe our own mother if she told us she could walk on water. We had to agree we wouldn’t, and might have to have her checked out by a psychiatrist. He asked then why would we believe that a man walked on water because we read it written in an ancient book by people we don’t even know? 

Yeah, he didn’t fight fair, I think. He only accepted observation and reason as truth. He gave us some small books to read with the crudely translated title of “The Value of Worth”, which was a study of what is valuable to know for a happy life. It was very interesting and topical, dealing with now--in the moment--and not worried much about the life to follow. Buddhism is often considered a philosophy rather than a religion for this reason.

This particular Buddhist group is called the Nichiren Shoshu, which translates as Nichirin’s Church. Nichirin was a Japanese priest who lived about 500 years ago and founded a very nationalist and fervent group of Buddhist believers. They were having a revival in Japan in the 1960’s and even had several large temples on the west coast of the USA.

Our lama proved very persuasive, and both of my friends converted to Buddhism within the year. I was more skeptical of this particular branch, and started studying other types of Buddhism, including Chinese, Vietnamese and Tibetan groups.

I studied the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese priest who was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Dalai Lama from Tibet also teaches a very peaceful brand of Buddhism. I have never joined any group, but I read and study Buddhism yet today, and find my life immensely better for it.

After my tour of duty was over, I returned to California to return to civilian life. My girlfriend and I resumed our relationship, but she had grown up while I was gone, started college and became less and less interested in living with me if I didn’t get a college degree also. I did not qualify for the G.I. Bill, and I had bad memories of the struggle to pay off the bill after my one year at Walla Walla College Engineering School.

I had to move to southern California to find work at a screw and rivet factory as a machinist, and although we corresponded regularly, our paths grew in different directions.

 And then I met Carolyn.

   

After I moved to southern California, I met Don Satterfield, a friend from college who had also been studying mechanical engineering, and like me he had gotten in debt and dropped out to pay the bill. His wife Laverna was a great cook, and I often came over to their house on the weekends to visit and share food and stories. Sometimes I would help him work on his car and later, after we both bought motorcycles, we would go out in the hills and ride on the trails and back roads.

In the summer of 1968, Laverna’s niece Carolyn had separated from her husband and was living with Don and Laverna with her daughter Darlene. She married very young to an older man, and now was looking for some excitement in her life beyond sitting at home and watching TV. Sometimes when I was visiting she would make a meal for me, and we talked and joked around a lot. 

I think I finally realized one Saturday evening that she was flirting with me, so as I left I invited her over to my apartment. It was late, but she followed me in her car and came up to my second floor apartment with me. We talked for a few minutes, and I explained to her that I already had a girlfriend, but I had no problem with a quick fling for fun as long as nothing else was expected. 

We were soon in bed, and I used all that I had learned through the years to show her a spectacular time. We spent at least an hour with me giving all the tenderness and consideration I could muster. She had several wild climaxes, and afterward we talked for a few more minutes about the experience. She said she usually felt a warm but unsatisfying feeling afterwards, and she was sure this was her first real orgasm. She expressed amazement that I stayed awake and talked afterwards. I guess she was used to her husband just falling asleep. 

She drove back to the Satterfield’s house about midnight.

I slept well, and late the next morning I went back to the Satterfield house, I think to get something I had left there.

 Laverna invited me in for breakfast, and casually asked, “How are you feeling this morning?”.

I said, “I’m feeling great, wonderful, in fact!”  

She asked, “ Why would that be?” 

I flippantly said, “It must be due to clean living!” 

She snorted Dr. Pepper through her nose, if memory serves me. I knew then that she was in on the story. Carolyn must have told her all about the night before, and it occurred to me that Laverna might even have instigated the affair. 

Carolyn decided to give her marriage a second chance, and she went back home to her husband and I didn’t see her for several months other than casually in passing. I continued to correspond with my girlfriend up north, but she was into another year of college and wasn’t ready to come live with me yet.

One evening in November I heard a knock on my door, and I found Carolyn standing there, holding some Dr. Pepper in one hand and a can of peanuts in the other. I invited her in and we sat down and talked. 

She told me that she and her husband had had a big fight that day, and he threatened to go back to Oklahoma. She called his bluff, packed his clothes in the car, told him to go, and he drove off, never to return.