My Redacted Life: Chapter 37: (Cont._2)

Robert Julius Cole, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany, walked his only child to the alter for marriage. The look on his face suggested that surviving an artillery barrage may have been easier. But, he left her with me, and the preacher took over. Julius joined Hazel in the audience. Vernell was standing to our side and, I’m sure, took a deep breath and held it. My brother, on the other side, probably looked as if he might faint any second. I prepared to follow instructions. Brenda smiled. She was the only one who looked happy. Everyone else waited. For me, there was no turning back. The die was cast.

I had spent a year and a half of my new civilian life studying urban planning and, after I started earning a bit of money, seeking the ladies, all sorts of them. I had felt as thought a bright new world had opened for me and I was ready for a life of working, gaining respect, and chasing women. But, the latter was over now, no more looking for women.

I had found me one.

We went through the words flawlessly, I placed the ring on her finger and the preacher announced us “man and wife.” Whew. Time to flee the scene. Then Brenda reached up and kissed me full in the mouth, in front of that whole church full of people. I declare.

Have I mentioned that I had never been to a church wedding before? The Navy certainly never taught you about them. The service was your beloved spouse. Anyway, we kissed and it was over.

Then Brenda folded her wings, took my arm, and walked me down the aisle and out of the church. I think maybe the congregation applauded. I’m not sure. Maybe they were just laughing at my shoes. I didn’t care. The ceremony was over and I was living a dream.

Trust me. I was stepping lightly.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 37

The time came for me to get dressed, drive to Lonoke, and marry the woman who had sashayed by and grabbed my heart not 200 feet from where I stood, long ago in a bachelorhood now nearing its useful end. I set my mind and managed everything, ready in plenty of time. All was set. There was no backing out now.

I folded my suit coat over the passenger seat of the Green Angel, checked once more to make sure I had the rings, and set off. There wasn’t a great deal of traffic in those days. With plenty of time, I drove carefully, taking old Highway 70, where we, Brenda and I, had taken so many late-afternoon drives back when we were courting. I wondered to myself if I had ever thought it would come to this. Was I a lucky man or what?

Or what?

Folks had already started gathering at the Methodist church just south of the main business corner of Downtown Lonoke. I went around and parked across the street, heading north for a fast getaway. I locked the doors and walked across the street. Once inside the church, I was happy do see my brother, Ricky, who was to be my best man. Others stayed stashed away somewhere. They directed us to a room just off the front of the church. I could see the crowd beginning to gather. Then I saw Leland Bassett sitting alone on one side of the church. The ushers, one my brother’s friends and a couple of Brenda’s neighbors from her childhood, were busy. They were placing everyone away from Leland, on the other side of the aisle. What was that all about?

Have I mentioned that I had never been to a church wedding before?

Several hundred years later, the church was full and the ushers escorted Hazel and Sainted Mother down the aisle. By this time, there were a few family and friends on my side and the ushers had begun to guide the overflow toward them. I panicked at a wandering thought. What if I needed to attend the men’s room before things got started?

Then the piano hit a chord and a voice of wondrous beauty filled the air. I have no memory of the song, except that it was quite beautiful and expertly delivered. When the singer finished it was so quiet that I could hear my blood flowing. Someone told my brother and me to walk out and stand, side by side, facing the audience.

Oh my goodness. I looked out at all those faces and just wanted to take off running. We could still elope later. The piano started again, with a familiar tune. At the far end of the church, She walked in with her daddy, and I forgot all about running.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 36 (Cont._3)

Marriage Day Minus One: After addressing the effects of my so-called bachelor party with a couple of beers, I felt better. I cleaned up and drove to the farm so I could take Brenda to the airport to pick up her aunt. The aunt’s given name was Mildred, I think. I knew her, as everyone did, as “Pill.” Why? The stock answer was that she was one, a "pill." I soon discovered the truth in that.

What can I say?

“She’s the one who taught me to fish,” Brenda explained, “and how to dig bait for fishing.” I thought perhaps I was going to meet an interesting character. I was so right.

I learned that she was the human resources director at a large corporation in the Chicago metro area. She had a nice office and a wall festooned with her college diploma and an assortment of credentials. They had all flowed from an inventive and creative mind. I’m not sure she ever finished high school. I would learn more, first hand, about the marches she made through life to a number of different drummers. My education started at the airport.

By the time we arrived, Pill and her adopted daughter Jennifer, who was to be the flower girl, had retrieved their baggage and were waiting for us. An array of baggage lay around them and they pointed me to the largest. I expected a normal load, but when I grabbed the handle, the bag didn’t move. What? With some effort, I carried it to the waiting car. Having secured Pill and Jennifer in the back seat of Brenda’s car, we loaded the bags in the trunk.

“What’s in there?” I whispered to Brenda as the two of us loaded the monster suitcase into the trunk.

“Liquor,” she said.

I nodded a complete lack of understanding.

“She knows there won’t be any at our house,” Brenda said. “She came prepared.”

“She brought her own liquor all the way from Chicago?”

“Lonoke is in dry county, don’t you know?”

I suppose it made sense. It sure made me wonder what was inside the suitcase. It also made me wonder just what kind of family I was getting myself into. Over the coming years, I would continue to wonder, though there was one thing I would become completely sure of as time passed.

Aunt Pill deserved her name, no doubt. She and I would become good friends, no doubt about that as well.

I left Brenda at her folks’ house after we had unloaded the ladies, their clothes, and the liquor. They all stood in the yard and waved me off. I was going to Little Rock to contemplate my future. They were going to catch Pill and Jennifer up on the news. As I waved, I knew I would only see Brenda Cole for a few more brief minutes, ever again. After that, she would be “Brenda von Tungeln.”

Now that was a sobering thought. I imagined that Aunt Pill would address it in proper fashion as the day wore on.

Aunt Pill, in a photo
she would have liked.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 35 (Cont._3)

Things were moving along in the summer of 1972. Work had started on our firm’s first development project, a small but elegant subdivision in south-central Arkansas. Numerous delays had slowed its start, but it was now progressing smoothly. The bosses and local realtors were taking bets on how long it would take to sell it out. Folks recalled legendary subdivisions in Little Rock in which demand was so great that the developers held lotteries to spread the sale of lots equally. Those were heady times.

We were about to unleash the fury of modern urban planning on the unsuspecting City of Hope. A project similar to the one we proposed there had gotten underway in Downtown Little Rock. Segments of Main Street and Capitol Avenue were disappearing, bulldozed to make way for a mall-like area in which pedestrians were free to roam and shop unmolested by vehicles. It was one of the most popular planning ideas of the time. Across the country, urban designers extolled the genius of the approach to addressing the loss of downtown retail to suburban malls. Americans could fix things, right? That’s what we were best at.

The girls about had the wedding planned. The church was set. A local woman with an exceptionally beautiful voice agreed to sing Brenda and me into the world of holy matrimony. Young cousins of the bride-to-be prepared to spread flowers and deliver the ring. Older men stood ready to escort guests and chaperone the mothers. Vernell would serve as Maid of Honor while her sister would manage the reception line. Vernell agreed to perform the additional task of inspecting her sister prior to the festivities for any misplaced articles of clothing, unsecured snaps or buttons, and untoward revelations resulting from thin or missing apparel. It was to be a model of a tasteful, modest, and modern public wedding.

I tingled in anticipation. The girls only suggested again and again that I’d best not screw up. On occasion, after a couple of glasses of wine, they weren’t above expressing the admonition in more earthy terms. At any rate, I got the message. Arrive sober. Stay focused. Leave in apparent ecstasy. Those represented the simplest of tasks, after all. The thought of it kept me awake at night.

Oh, and the bachelor party. It really wasn’t to be a party, was it? No, just a few beers with the bosses before I signed on to marital subjugation as had they. No strippers? No what? You know, strippers, women that remover their clothes for men in a suggestive fashion. Really? Strippers? They have such people in Little Rock? Oh, be serious. If we hear of strippers, you will account for it. Did men really do such things before they married some sweet young thing? I hadn’t seen a stripper since the USO shows they used to bring into the enlisted men’s club at Camp Tien Sha. Those shows certainly didn’t represent a proper introduction into the world of matrimony. Strippers? Really? No, just a few beers among friends

So it went as the day drew close.

The past slowly disappears.
The future is cloudy.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 31 (Cont._2)

Somewhere in the process of planning this August wedding, I asked Brenda if, maybe she might just want to elope. The look she gave me would have melted Kryptonite.

“Things aren’t just about me, or us,” my future Trophy Wife explained. “They are for other people as well,” adding “stupid” as a form of gentle emphasis.  I got the point but she continued nonetheless.

“My mama and daddy worked hard to raise me and they deserve a nice, but affordable, wedding, not a Las Vegas production nor a beach party extravaganza by any means, but a nice wedding they can remember for their only daughter.”

At that point, I chose to stay out of the whole thing. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Vernell would be her Maid of Honor, my brother best man, and my neighbor in charge of logistics. I knew nothing about church weddings, having never attended one. I felt like the late Jerry Clower who once remarked that in the first football game he ever saw, he was a starting lineman.

The last wedding, of any sort, I had observed was on a Saturday when college friend Leland Bassett called and said he had to get married. That day. Leland always moved a little faster than the curves allowed, but this caper took the cake, so to speak. Somehow, a friend of the bride-to-be's mother located a county employee in Tulsa who agreed to sneak into the courthouse and get a marriage license (this was Oklahoma, mind you). That minor obstacle overcome, we, after some exertion, found a county judge in Nowata, Oklahoma who performed the ceremony around eight o’clock that evening in his bathrobe.

We all assumed that some untoward news had prompted the urgency, but no. Leland was just the sort of person who, having decided to do something, went about it without delay and at full speed. A couple of years or so later, when I was in the Navy, he and his wife had their first child, a beautiful little girl. This adventure, the one-day wedding, occurred in the 1960s and didn’t strike many as too odd at the time. Not much did in those days.

After a couple of beers one night, I told Brenda that story as she was busy sewing dresses for the wedding.

She didn’t think it was very funny, and told me so.

Before I knew it, she had
told the whole world, via
the old Arkansas Gazette.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 30 (Cont._3)

So, we go to see the preacher at the Methodist Church in Lonoke to plan our wedding scheduled for August 17, 1972. He was underwhelmed. I can’t say as how I blame him. He had been pastor there a couple of years, and had never met Brenda. She had been in college, she explained.

The last time I had been in church was while in college and that’s because I was trying to impress one of the sorority girls at the house where I served as janitor. I explained that I had been in the Navy and left the sorority girl part out.

Didn’t they have churches in Conway, Arkansas? She admitted only that she supposed so.

Didn’t they have services on Navy ships and installations? I didn’t know for sure. It was the new, modern Navy and all. They didn’t even call the female sailors “Waves” anymore and the most famous enlisted man serving then was a highly impressive African-American named Carl Brashear, a man truly worth worshiping in his own right.

The preacher showed no interest in either my Navy career or our excuses. After some obligatory wrangling, he agreed to perform the service, albeit somewhat enthusiastically. He was particularly fixated upon my former residency in San Francisco. I clammed up and we continued.

The only hiccup occurred when he got to the service itself.

“Were we interested in writing our own?”

“No, and the shorter the better.”

He had started to go over the service when Brenda interrupted. “In the woman’s part, does it have that ‘love, honor, and obey’ stuff?”

He blinked and said, “In the traditional service it does.”

“We want that ‘obey’ part left out.”

He actually looked at me for confirmation, not a smart move on his part. I just shrugged. He made a note.

The ordeal finally ended. He promised to marry us, and we promised to come to church with Brenda’s parents when we happened to be in Lonoke of a Sunday morning. There would be no stricture concerning the need to obey anyone, no matter what The Apostle had to say about the matter.

We were soon in the Green Angel with the top off, her red hair billowing, and breathing, once more, the “air of the heathen.”

Actually, I was to find the Methodists a warm, progressive lot. I’ve never heard a bona-fide Methodist minister preach a hint of hatred. They concentrate a lot on the concept of “grace” and struggle with, rather than worship, riches. I’ve never heard one tell a terrified five-year old about a place where their precious little body might burn forever. It’s the new, modern church, I suppose.

Oh, and speaking of Master Chief Boatswain's Mate (and Master Diver) Carl Brashear. I served with him on the old USS Hunley, a singular honor in my life. They later made a film, starring Cuba Gooding, of his life. I don’t think he suffered from bone spurs. Had he, it would have affected only one heel, the other having been lost, along with part of his leg, years before I served with him, in a diving mission for our Navy.

Me, obey a man?
Yeah right.

My Redacted Life: Sunday Break

Sunday deserves a quick note to bring you up to date on our recent betrothment. As I reported earlier, Brenda planned a church wedding, a modest one out of respect for her hard-working parents. We had, well, she and Vernell had—I wasn't actually consulted—picked the date of August 19th, a Saturday. That would leave enough time for a brief honeymoon and to have the records changed at the school where she taught. She would begin the new school year as "Mrs. von Tungeln" although she had considered using the old-fashioned style like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had, where she would just keep her original name. But, she decided to go modern and "Mrs." it would be.

All was set. She reserved the date at the family's church, the Methodist one in Lonoke.

Then things got screwy.

The pastor called to inform her that he had reneged on the date because a young couple wanted it. He didn't mention family wealth, prestige, or untoward time constraints, just that this young couple was "really in love." That seemed to settle it.

A mild, but not debilitating panic set in. To postpone our wedding for a week wouldn't allow time for the name-change paperwork. Moving it up a week would create furor over an already cramped schedule. What to do?

Hell, why not get married on, say a Thursday evening? That fit the schedule of all concerned.

"So let it be written, so let it be done," Brenda announced in her most Pharaoh-like manner. My only thought was that I was glad we hadn't bothered to have the date of our marriage engraved on our wedding rings, now safely ensconced in the lay-away at Cave's Jewelry. I just wanted the thing over with. I wasn't comfortable being up in front of people.

So, we accommodated both  a young couple and our own plans without further complication. I've always wanted to check on the marriage that claimed the Saturday night slot. I never have. The percentages, though, for the long-term success of marriages of young couples who were "really in love" at that time, were no better than 40 percent, probably a little lower for rich kids in that part of the world. I've always figured 18 months, tops.

Next, we would meet the preacher.

My Redacted LIfe: Chapter 29 (Cont._4)

The next week passed. We were a betrothed couple so the world looked a little rounder and 1972 seemed like an even more memorable year. The girls, Brenda, Vernell, and her sister, began plans for the wedding. The few times I was around them, I heard lots of giggles and snickers.

They left me out completely.

I didn’t mind. I had work to do. Tom was getting antsy that we finish the Hope plan so the engineering could begin. Business was falling off Downtown there as in most cities. Later, pundits delighted in blaming downtown malls for the death of retail in the central business, and those misadventures certainly didn’t help. But the end had settled on downtown retail much earlier with the proliferation of family automobiles, the death of public transit, and the construction of alluring shopping centers that offered excitement along with spending. Centrifugal force spun retail away from the city core and into the low-density suburbs, to be chased by swarms of shoppers in individual vehicles.

Since ancient humankind first danced in order to make the rains come, we have believed we could cause the unlikely or impossible to happen by human interference. So modern sapiens envisioned the downtown mall as a way to counterattack reality. Reality is an impervious foe, however. Urban planners no more knew this at the time than did the American military or the government that directed it.

I knew nothing about all this in 1972. I danced along merrily with the rest. It would take years of heartbreaking reality before the truth revealed itself. I was still a believer in urban planning’s prowess in imitative magic. Besides, I had me a girl, or she had me. I didn’t know which. That made me untouchable.

On Wednesday, she met me downtown for lunch at Land’s Cafeteria on Markham. Then we walked all the way over to Cave’s Jewelry on Main. There we picked out and bought an engagement ring for her and put some wedding rings on the layaway for the two of us. This thing was getting serious.

It was Daylight Savings Time by now. I took off work a little early so we could drive out and tell her folks. They didn’t throw a fit. In fact, they took it in good humor. I didn’t have my hair greased back and didn’t carry a pack of Lucky Strikes wound into an arm of my T-shirt. Nor did I ask her father if he might hire me as a farm hand after the wedding. She assured her mother that I was, indeed, some years older than she, so her daughter wasn’t “robbing the cradle.” They were pleased, I felt.

Hazel did inquire where and when the wedding might be. “We’ll have it in the Methodist church in town so all the relatives can make it,” Brenda said. “I’m sure Grandma will want to come, and she can’t travel far.”

“That’s good,” Hazel said. “I can’t imagine a girl wanting to get married someplace her grandmother couldn’t get to.”

With that, we were set. Hazel would help get the news out. That wouldn’t be hard for her. The office of Dr. B.E. Holmes, where she worked, was the official news center for most of Lonoke County. Walter Cronkite would have marveled at the speed with which information vital to everyday life in the polis and surrounding area spread.

My name, the last one at least, quickly became a household one, though challenging in pronunciation. Who was this mysterious man who had stolen the heart of the Belle of Lonoke County? Some decided I must secretly be a physician, a member of the only profession good enough for her.

The next Saturday, we drove to Pine Bluff and broke the news to my folks. Their response proved predictable. Any man that Brenda would marry couldn’t be all bad. That even included me.

Thus, we set the stage for a great adventure. Our ship was rigged, the crew was ready, the lines were taught, the anchor ready to be hauled, and the shoals well marked.

Most of them were anyway.

When is my life going
to get simple again?