What can I say about Mary that I haven't already said, many times? After almost 37 years of marriage, I've used about every superlative (and, honestly, a few derogatives) in the English Language. That's how one stays married for 37 years, by thinking and speaking well about each other all (most) of the time. We've known each other for more than 40 years, going back to high school, we even dated for a few months. She was, as I have often avered, my best friend, and has remained so, through it all.
Mary doesn't remember the first time I ever saw her, but I can still recall it very clearly. It was the day after Labor Day, 1966. I was a sophomore, she was a freshman, but we shared the same Homeroom, 9th and 10th grade, G through M. I was already in the room, pouring over my schedule, when she walked in with a friend who had helped her find her Homeroom. She hates her yearbook photos, because her mom had her wearing a page-boy haircut, black-rimmed "granny glasses," and a skirt that hung well below her knees. I don't know, and have never known, why she became a "person of interest" (as they say) to me. To be honest, she wasn't a "real looker," pleasant looking, modestly dressed (in a day when teachers checked hemlines by making the girls kneel), with the hair and glasses, she still caught my interest. Being 15, and handicapped by a deathly dread of rejection, I kept my distance, but I found out a great deal about her before we ever "met".
I knew her dad, though I didn't realize it for quite a while. He had been in a bowling league with my dad, different teams. I used to keep score, and earn $2 a night for my efforts, plus tips. My dad introduced us when I was a freshman, and Jack was an interesting, slightly odd, and intelligent man, so I kind of liked him. Although, in my mind, I wasn't interesting, I was a little odd myself, and a lot more intelligent than I look. We spoke many times, and one night, after I had seen her in Homeroom, he brought Mary to the bowling alley. DING!
It would be an entire year, after that night, until we were actually introduced. That happened when I joined a nine-person folk-music group called "A Small Cyrcle of Friends". I saw quite a bit of her at rehersals and performances, and got to know her as a person. The group dissolved, due to the difficulties of getting nine people to rehersals, but Mary, a petite red-head named Nina, the Chief of Police's son, George, and I formed a group to perform at a Quartet Festival held at the Napa LDS Stake Center. Mary and Nina were LDS, George was Catholic, and I a lapsed-Lutheran, so we called the group "The Ecumenical Council". Mary was, and is, a very pleasant Alto, Nina was a Soprano, George a Tenor, and I did the bottom. George played a Martin six-string; I played a twelve-string, and we did a lot of Peter, Paul, & Mary stuff, and improvised a fourth-part harmony. We sounded really good.
We had rehearsed Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, and (Stick of)Bamboo for the competition, and had our harmony crisp and polished. We were scheduled late in the program, so we sat together (I sat next to Mary), and listened to group-after-group perform songs in perfect unison. One group, a couple of groups before us, even did the same songs we were doing, but in unison. I got the idea about the same time George did, and we exchanged glances, and hustled the girls into a corner to discuss a slight change to our performance. No one had expected to listen to unisonic performances all night, but no one had shown an inkling of harmony. We decided to sing Where..., but we would sing the first verse in unison, and break into four-part in the second. The impact was amazing.
As we began, the girls were singing to the audience, George and I watched the Judges lean back, bored as all get-out. As we finished the first verse, George and I exchanged smiles, completing the chord-riffs between verses, and broke into a perfectly pitched, four-part harmony. As in most amateur competitions, there was a good deal of background "hubbub," people talking, babies crying, but as soon as we broke, the room went absolutely still. The only thing being heard in that Cultural Hall was a couple of mediocre guitarist, and four young people singing a song as it should be. Some time, during the second verse, George and I exchanged much broader smiles. The girls noticed it, too, and we finished the night confidently, reveling in the rapt attention of our audience. We took First Place.
I have to tell that story, because it was Mary's and my First Date. I had asked her mom if we could attend a Moby Grape concert at the Fairgrounds, it was on the way home, and I would have her home by 12:30 am. Mom said "No." Knowing that Christine had said no, the opportunity to "celebrate our victory" was too great of a temptation, even for Mary, who agreed to go "for a while". We claimed "car trouble" for the delay, but it was a weak excuse, and Mom saw right through it. I hated to start-off with parents by lying, I always tried, and was mostly successful at currying parental favor, but I really wanted to see Moby Grape, and hang out with Mary, and hold hands. I don't think we even kissed that night, but I knew I was in love.
Mom -- I've earned the right to call Chris Gardner that -- didn't like me, didn't trust me (for obvious reasons), and only consented to a second "First Date," after Jack stood up for me, and I agreed to "observe all the rules." That meant coming to the door, greeting the family, posing for pictures, the whole nine-yards. I always thought of the experience as my introduction to Southern culture. Besides, the Mormon-lifestyle had intriqued me, even at 16. Even at our wedding, I don't think Mom trusted me, or even liked me much, but I wasn't marrying her, I was marrying the best friend I've ever had.
We did the normal-teenager-dating-thing, for the late-'60's, movies, dances, parties, I even through a Sweet Sixteen party in Mary's honor. That was the night I told her I loved her, and she started "planning our future together." Remember, I was 16 myself, and had gained enough insight to know I didn't know anything, and the woman I loved was sitting with my head in her lap, talking about marriage, and jobs, and all the crap I was trying to avoid thinking about at the time. I didn't know what to think, after that night, but we made it last until the Fall of '68.
Call it youthful restlessness, or a big-breasted blonde freshman, but I mentioned to a "friend" that I was liking this new girl on the bus. Don't know how he did it, but by the end of the class period, it got back to Mary. I'm walking down the main hall, and Mary's friend, Diane, gets right in my face, and tells me, "Mary doesn't want to see you again." BOOM! Huh? What? Right out of the blue.
I respected Mary's wishes, except for rehersals, and they were always tense. I went out with the blonde. Broke up with the blonde. Hung out, smoked a lot of pot, dated sproratically, dropped out of college, hung out some more. As my father's patience began to wear thin, I surprized him by joining the Navy in 1971. Went to boot camp, A-School, got transferred to an aircraft carrier already in the Med, pub-crawled Europe, came back, was in the middle of a major ship's overhaul, and thoughts of suicide were becoming viable options to my lonliness. An observant Leading Petty Officer, a guy named Gibson, or "Gibby," started some paperwork, and I found myself with ten days-off for Christmas and New Years, '72 - '73. Gibby said he didn't care how I got there, but to go home. A phone call later, I had Space-A tickets, NOR-ATL-DFW-SFO.
Somewhere, from the apartment-to-the airport, et al, I caught a flu virus. Spent the first three, of my ten days, flat on my back, on my parents couch. When I got to feeling better, I started thinking of people to call, and got up to make a phone call, but not the one I dialed. It was Mary's home number, and her mom answered. I asked if Mary was home, and she asked, "Who's this?"
I said, "Don't tell her, but this is Steve Martin." I felt a sudden chill across the phone lines.
"Just a minute..."
Mary was delighted by my call, and asked when I could come over. I told her an hour; she said a half-hour; I agreed, she said, "OK, see you in fifteen minutes," and hung up. I stood there, phone in hand, listening to the dial tone, thinking, "That was strange." I actually made it in ten.
I will never forget the image of her opening the door that night. Her hair was long, the glasses more stylish, and she was dressed in a pants-blouse combination. She was every bit the BYU Co-ed, of 1972. In short, she was the most beautiful person I had ever beheld. The very instant I saw her, I knew. It was like a bell, or a gong, there was this ringing in my ears, my heart started pounding, and I started to feel very warm, almost sweaty. I knew I was looking at the woman I would marry. It was absolutely clear.
Over the years, I've only forgotten that image once, when facing one of the toughest tests a marriage can go through, and it lead to even more trying times. It was all my fault, but we came out of it stronger, in the sense that "Those thing that do not kill me..." We've faced it all; the good and bad, the joyous and horrific, even life and death, together.
I tell anyone who'll stand still long enough, that I married my best friend. No one gets through what we have without being friends, the fact that we still love each other has little-to-nothing to do with things. You love somebody because you have to, spouse, or child, or brother/sister, or parent; friendship is a choice. Sure, one may love a friend, but the choice comes first. Clearly, once in my life, I made a good one.
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