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. 

I'm Not That Guy

I’m Not That Guy

Somebody hurt you

It was not I

You left so quickly

I could just cry

Somebody hurt you

I’m not that guy

Let's talk a minute

Let me say goodbye

For forty six years we were husband and wife.

We loved and danced through a wonderful life.

But your memories grew fainter in these last years

And now I'm the object of your earliest fears.

*

I watched you return to a shy teenage flame.

I was sure you would call me by your first husband’s name.

It wasn’t his memory that took you away.

But some evil man who raped you that day.

*

I hadn’t yet met you when you were that young.

The pervert that hurt you should have been hung.

You’ve told me you hate me and will kill me someday.

You think I’m the one who hurt you that way.

Somebody hurt you

It was not I

You left so quickly

I could just cry

Somebody hurt you

I’m not that guy
Let's talk a minute

Let me say goodbye

I'm Not That Guy

I’m Not That Guy

Somebody hurt you

It was not I

You left so quickly

I could just cry

Somebody hurt you

I’m not that guy

Let's talk a minute

Let me say goodbye

For forty six years we were husband and wife.

We loved and danced through a wonderful life.

But your memories grew fainter in these last years

And now I'm the object of your earliest fears.

*

I watched you return to a shy teenage flame.

I was sure you would call me by your first husband’s name.

It wasn’t his memory that took you away.

But some evil man who raped you that day.

*

I hadn’t yet met you when you were that young.

The pervert that hurt you should have been hung.

You’ve told me you hate me and will kill me someday.

You think I’m the one who hurt you that way.

Somebody hurt you

It was not I

You left so quickly

I could just cry

Somebody hurt you

I’m not that guy
Let's talk a minute

Let me say goodbye

Carolyn in Durant

Carolyn’s dementia is turning out to be a Hitchcock horror movie. Every since we started on this trip she has been sliding into the abyss. She has gotten louder and more insistent that I hurt her, or raped her and she hates me and will never love me or let me touch her again. Maybe Jerry Hirsch of Third Eye photography knew what was going to happen soon. He offered to do a photo shoot of us in romantic poses showing the love we had. He said it was all about memories, and to distribute them any way I wished, as memories is all we will have in awhile. 

In the last week she has told me loudly and incessantly how much she hates me, and how she will never forgive me, ever. I was mystified as to what I had done to deserve such hatred. My protestations of innocence just made Carolyn more angry and much louder, insisting I was lying.

During one of her diatribes at me this morning, she said, “You ruined my puberty and you hurt me really bad and I will never forgive you for what you did to me when I was a little girl.” The lights went on in my head, because I didn’t meet her until several years after she had gotten married, and had a daughter. I did not know her or her family during her puberty.

Somebody hurt her badly during her puberty—raped her—and I have become that person in her mind as her memories have faded into the past. I seem to be reaping what another person sowed. I could expound on the unfairness of it all, but that doesn’t matter now. My hope is to get her medical help and counseling until the memories of this trauma fade away also, hopefully.

Her exposure to the town of her childhood may have triggered the explosion she had. She just keeps telling me how much she hates me, and how much she doesn’t want to see me again, and I’ll never touch her “that way” again.

I have shed more bitter tears in the last week than in my whole life prior to this. That is the only thing keeps me sane, I think. The next few days will be pivotal in determining where she ends up, and where I am going to live. I still want to be near her, and visit her even if I have to take more abuse. I know she doesn’t really understand that it wasn’t me who hurt her, and hope that someday soon she will remember that I am the one who loved her faithfully for 46 years.  

Why the Rancor?

WHY THE RANCOR?

There is a war going on in the Democratic Party. It has become a personal war, and is only going to become more bitter as we approach the election in November.

No, it’s not just Sanders/Clinton for the nomination, although that is part of it. It is also Harry Reid against Alan Grayson. It is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz against Elizabeth Warren.

Debbie is fighting Elizabeth and her Consumer Finance Protection Agency to prevent laws that would cap the usurious interest rates that pay day lenders can charge.

Harry Reid stated in a Democratic meeting that he hoped Alan Grayson would lose the next election. How’s that for party unity?

I received a fund raising letter from Sen. Grayson that I thought sums up the reasons for the war succinctly. I reprint the letter in its entirety, minus the links for donations. Please feel free to go to his website and give generously if you can. I feel his use of the word “betrayed” is not an overstatement.

 Dear Donald,

This is a short essay on progressive anger: its origin, its attributes, its meaning, and its cure.

We’re tired of being sold out. That’s why we’re angry.

The Democratic Party has long been the home for those who believe in justice, equality, and peace. And for just as long, our progressive wing has served on the front lines in this fight. We’ve made the calls, knocked on the doors, donated the funds, and stuffed the envelopes to get Democrats elected. We were grassroots leaders when Democrats took the Senate and the House in 2006, and the White House in 2008.

In my case, I heard the call for justice, equality and peace, ran office for the first time in my life in 2006, and lost. Then I picked myself up off the floor, dusted myself off, ran again in 2008, and won. Our party has benefited from a steady stream of people like me who care enough to get involved, and push as hard as we can to make the world a better place.

This election cycle, all that has changed. The same leaders, and the same party, for whom we’ve been the foot soldiers for so long have become dismissive, condescending and even malicious toward anyone who isn’t willing to “get in line” and follow the dictates of party bosses. Our own party politburo has accused us of disloyalty when we wouldn’t back yet another American war in the Middle East, or their sell-out schemes to expand corporate welfare. Our own party politburo has attacked us for opposing new fake trade giveaways to multinational corporations. And worst of all, our own party politburo has attacked us ruthlessly whenever we want the choice of our candidates to be made by The People, rather than party bosses and party hacks. In the hands of a corrupt and inept “leadership,” our love for the principles of Team Blue has become unrequited love. All they care about is obedience – “shut up, and do as you’re told, or we will hurt you.”

My campaign and other progressive campaigns were, of course, prepared for the inevitable attacks from the GOP. We were less prepared for the attacks by petty dictators from inside the very party we helped build. This election is going to be the most expensive in history, because we not only have to spend to fight back against the Republicans -- we have to spend to fight back against the corrupt Establishment ruling class of our own party.
Who wins, when malicious Establishment Democrats viciously come after progressives like me? DC “political consulting” firms, and the Republican Party. Who loses? The American People. Our so-called “leadership” is not just putting their thumb on the scale – they’re smashing the scale.

I used to say that you had only three friends in life – God, your mamma, and the Democratic Party. It’s getting really hard to say that these days.

We’ve been betrayed by the Party that we built, the Party that we love. So we’re angry. What are we supposed to be, bemused? Nonplussed? Mildly dismayed?

How can we stop this cancer from destroying our party, making it the unDemocratic Party, and letting the Republicans win? It’s simple. Give the Democratic Party back to the People. Let the People, not the party, decide who our candidates are.

If we want to continue to be the party of the People, then we need to be a party by the People, and for the People. It’s just that simple.

We’re fighting as hard as we can to win back the heart and soul of our party, but we can’t do it alone.
Let’s teach the politburo a lesson: The People, united, can never be defeated. That’s what the Democratic Party has to be all about – whether the party hacks like it or not.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

May 21, 2016

A Bug in the Yard

About Stepping on that Bug

This morning I went out to mow the lawn. Well, in truth, I went out to shorten the weeds. If I don’t do something, the mustard weeds, thistles and cheat grass take over the yard.

As I was pushing along, not thinking about much of anything, I saw a black bug out in front of the mower. My first thought was to run over him, just because I could. My second thought was, ”Why?” I liked the second thought better. I think I just barely passed the test. I went around the bug.

I remember as a little boy, my mother told me about this weird Indian religion that didn’t believe in stepping on bugs, but carried brooms to sweep their path so no bug would be stepped on. In the years since, I have studied eastern religions (and also early Christianity) almost obsessively, and found that religion to be Jainism.

The western perception is they refrain from killing bugs because they believe in reincarnation, and worry that the bug just might be their grandmother, or something like that. That may be a part of the motive, but I think there may be more to it than that.

A fundamental difference between most eastern religions; Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. and most western religions is the object of their efforts in this life. Most eastern religions are all about improving yourself to make this life better. If you allow the right spirit to dwell in you, and learn the right choices, your life here will be happier and more satisfying. There is little push for believers to convert others or tell others where they might be sinning—the emphasis is on knowing yourself.

On the other hand, most western religions; Christianity, Islam, etc, are focused on having the correct conception of God, and the correct doctrines to believe, and the correct actions we must do to be saved. A lot of emphasis is on convincing others they are wrong and converting them to the “truth.”

When that bug first came into my awareness, my thoughts could have been about whether killing that bug is against some religious law, or whether I could end up in a bad place for killing that bug. Well. the Good Book says nothing about killing bugs, so I guess I don’t have to worry about hell, do I?

Hinduism has a plethora of gods who are in opposition to each other, warring for controlling your life. (They also say there is only one god with different attributes, so they have the same metaphysical problem as Trinitarian Christians.) They have Shiva, the Destroyer, and Rama, the Creator. We all have elements of both within us at all times. Which way do we go? Which spirit will we allow to control us?

Buddhism teaches us to study our every action, and try to determine the consequences. As we study, and modify our actions to achieve better outcomes, we will insure a happier life for ourselves and those around us.

What difference would a bug make? Very little, unless you also believe, as Buddhists do, that we are all interconnected—our lives are not lived in isolation to all life around us. Maybe killing that bug wouldn’t make a lot of difference to me. But it tells me something about my own spirit. I need to improve my empathy and loving spirit. If I would step on a bug without a second thought, would I also go to Africa and shoot a old lion dead just because I can? Would I beat up an old beggar on the street just because I think he needs it?

There is a aspect of Christianity that is much ignored, but expresses the same belief. Paul mentions it in 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew chapters 5 and 6 also make it plain, and Matthew 25 explains how we will be judged. But just doing the deeds so we can get to heaven and avoid the fires of hell isn’t going to get you there. We must have the spirit of love within us, and any deeds we do are just manifestations of that spirit dwelling in us.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness and faith, meekness and temperance. Galatians 5:22,23.

Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the Kingdom is in the sky.’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea.’ then the fish will precede you.
Rather the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the Sons of the Living Father. The Gospel of Thomas verse 3.

To kill that bug or not is a test of my spirit. I know my spirit passed a tiny little test. I’m happy today!

Don Rogers
April 30, 2016