Mary Gardner first caught my attention on the first day of classes my sophomore year at Vacaville High School. I've never been able to figure out how it was that I "keyed" on her that quickly. She was very modestly dressed for a warm September morning in 1966, she had a Page-boy hairstyle, and black rimmed, almost "granny glasses," but I thought that maybe I'd try to find out more about her, where she lived, etc. Our Homeroom teacher called out, "Mary Gardner?" She got up to get her class schedule, and I found out one of the most important things, her name...
We lived about a quarter-mile from the local bowling center, a place called Vaca Bowl. My dad liked to bowl, and so did my mom, for a while. I remember going to an upstairs bowling alley, 8 lanes,
manually operated pinsetters (guys would sit behind a backboard, and after each ball would drop the sweep, manually press the pinsetter down, release a lever, raise the pinsetter -- along with any pins that were left, -- operate the sweep back and forward, press the pinsetter down, release the pins from the pinsetter, send the ball back, and raise the sweep. For this, "pin-boys," as they were called, relied on the customers to tip them, usually a fairly insignificant amount. If you remember this was in the 1950's a dime per person, per game, in a league could amount to as much as $2.40 for a couple of hours of sweat. Anyway, I used to go to "The Bowl" on school nights, to make money keeping score for leagues. That's how I met her dad, Jack Gardner, who bowled in a prison-employee league, on Monday nights. I was always more comfortable with adults than I was with kids my age, so I struck up a conversation, one night, and we became pretty friendly. He worked at the prison, as did my dad, and they knew each other. My dad used to joke about some of the things that Jack would try with prisoners, but he would also defend Jack with his co-workers, something Jack knew, but no one else did. Particularly Christine, Mary's mother, who had an old fashioned, southern grudge against my Yankee kin. This, I wouldn't find out until later, however.
Mary, on a very few occasions, come with her dad to The Bowl, to watch, and do homework. I made sure to smile and say "Hi" whenever she came. I discovered that the family was Mormon, and I didn't get that, because they didn't say, "thee, thy, or thou," and her dad didn't have a beard... I'd stopped going to church the year before, so I was confusing Mormon with some blend of Mennonite/Amish-ism, and what I knew wasn't matching up with my beliefs. Yes, I've said it more than once, and won't be offended by anyone remarking, "What a freaking idiot." I admit, I was.
At the end of my sophomore year, I knew her name, I knew she was Mormon, and I'd gotten to know her father, and
he thought fairly highly of me, because I'd see him at The Bowl, every week, earning 20 cents per person, per three-game series, keeping score for anywhere between 8 to 10 bowlers per night, keeping track of "marks" (spares and strikes), adding up the team games after 10 frames, filling out the league sheet, getting them signed by the team captains, and take them to the league secretary. For mixed leagues, it was $1.60, plus any tips, for 2 hours work, during the Men's leagues, with 10 bowlers, I made a full $2, plus any tips. I could earn as much as $50 in a week, because I had taken 2 years of mechanical drawing, my printing was exceptional, as were my figures, my math, and I took care of the paperwork. Usually it was around $20 a week (tax-free cash), and in the late 1960's, it was as more than I could earn on a Work Permit (20 hrs. per week) at the minimum wage of $1.65 per hour, after taxes. I had a steady source of income, and was soon to have my driver's license.
Not everyone can claim that their first car was a sports car... Mine was a 1959 Triumph TR3.
The white thing, with low swept doors, and wire wheels... The people are a bunch of Mormon kids I got to singing folk songs with during my junior year. The young lady on the left is Mary, sometime in 1967 or 1968, I am on the far-right of the picture, sitting on the hood.
The group was called "A Small Cyrcle of Friends," and it was destined to failure from its inception. The group had seven people in it, the lady sitting in the middle of the picture, I don't remember, but that happens a lot, lately. Anyway, ever try to get seven teenagers to agree on anything? I'm convinced that it can't be done. Translation: We never rehearsed. We had three or four folk songs we could sing,
Blowing in the Wind, Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore (Hallelujah), Puff, the Magic Dragon, campy stuff like that... Three of us, at least, wanted to learn some songs by the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the other guitarist and I had been working on some of them, but we never got around to putting them in our repertoire. We only played two gigs, one at the school, and one at the Mormon Church, before the inevitable personality clashes started, and everyone started losing interest. Everyone except for the three who wanted to do more current folk arrangements.
The three were Mary, Nina, and myself (Nina is the one sitting in the car to the right of Mary). We didn't do anything, except talk about it at school, until the Mormon Stake (for those unfamiliar with LDS congregations, a Stake is made up of a minimum of five, or six Wards, which are the actual congregations) announced a Quartet Festival, in the Napa Stake (of which Vacaville was a part) Building. Nina was pretty excited by it, she got Mary going, and they both ask me if I knew someone, another guy, who could sing and play guitar. As a matter of fact... I did. George, the son of the town's Chief of Police, sang in choir, and had a C.F. Martin DB6. We'd get together, once in a while, and play together, so we were pretty familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses. George sang Tenor in the high school choir, Nina was an Soprano, Mary a resonant Alto, and I sang as a Bass/Baritone. Where as, with "Cyrcle," there was almost a cacophony of voices, this quartet was able to manage some tight harmonies, I spent a lot of time trying to find a "fourth-part" for a three-part song, and succeeded most of the time.
This new group was called "The Ecumenical Council," a reference to something tried by the current Pope, because George was a Catholic, I was still a member of the Lutheran Church, Nina and Mary were Mormons, so it seemed like a good fit. We went to the Quartet Festival planning to sing two songs,
Bamboo and
Michael, we didn't have long to rehearse, so we went with a couple of easy ones. Come to find out, half of the groups there sang one, or the other, and two groups sang the same two songs we had planned on singing.
Panic, naturally, ensued, and we talked about changing songs, until I heard what turned out to be a game-changer... all of the other groups, and I mean ALL of them, sang in unison. We had practiced four-part harmonies, so we got together and forged a plan. We would start with
Michael, and sing the first verse in unison, breaking into four-part on verse two. I watched the judges, and they sat back like they were thinking, "Great, another group singing in unison..." during the first verse. We hit the four-parts hard on the second verse, did
Bamboo in four-part, and won the Festival. Everyone stopped to congratulate us, and the judges were gushing with praises.
On the way home, we stopped in Vallejo to go to a concert at the Solano County Fairgrounds, that we weren't supposed to really go to, because Mary's mom said "No". We didn't stay long, and we almost got home in time (I wasn't driving, or we would have been), so I had earned "Strike One," as far a Christine Gardner was concerned. Being the son of Charlie Martin was enough for "Strike Two," so I was already on thin ice, before we really started dating.
We were, kind of, going "steady," for several Months during my junior year, up until her 16th Birthday. I threw a surprise Sweet Sixteen party for her, that everyone had a great time at. Because it was at my house, with my parents home, Mary was allowed to stay out until midnight, but the party had to quiet down after 10 pm, and it was pretty much over by 10:30, or 11pm. I moved all the stuff we used in the garage, and put a 6 ft. rattan couch in front of my car so I could pull it into the garage, and Mary and I could "make-out" (remember, this was 1968, so we were just kissing), and talk until I had to take her home.
It started innocently enough, we talked about plans for the future, how much I hated the thought of more school after high school, and the strangest thing happened... Mary said that that was good, because then I could get a job, and
I could save up, so that we could get married after she graduated. I panicked.
I was 16, just shy (exactly five months) of 17, I didn't know "squat," and
KNEW I didn't know squat... Hell, I didn't even know what I wanted to do after I graduated, ant that was still a year away. Things were a lot cheaper in the late '60's, but we weren't going to be able to live on the $20 per week I could make at The Bowl. While gas was anywhere from 25 to 35 cents per gallon, and bread was 40 cents, milk was a buck, minimum wage was a paltry $1.65 an hour, or $66 a week, $286 a month, or $3500 per year. In 1968, if not, it was around then, Giants future-Hall of Famer Willie Mays negotiated a $100,000 per season contract, and Arnold Palmer became the first man to make the same amount on the PGA Tour for a season.
We broke up. I happened to mention, to someone I had considered one of my few friends in high school, that I had been thinking of breaking up with Mary. It was first period, Shop class, but by the end of the following period, Mary knew it, and there was nothing I could do but to end it right there. It was hard. We had become very close while we were together, and she had become my Best Friend, the one person I could bare my soul to without judgment or criticism. It wasn't easy for me. I had wanted to stay friends, but the only way I could communicate with her was through her friend, Diane, and she didn't like me much, anyway. What really hurt was when Diane told me that Mary had been crying. I never intended to hurt her, it wasn't my idea to have some A-hole, whom I thought was a friend, blind-side her in the hallways. I wanted to talk it out first; tell her how frightened I was by the thought of getting married right after high school; most of all, I wanted to tell her that I still loved her, and wanted to stay friends, and just see where life took us from there. But, I never got another chance to talk to her. Over 45 years later, as I write this, I've learned that the break-up had been pretty devastating for her, as well.
Looking back, the break-up was a turning point in my life, and not in a good way, either. I dated a couple of other girls, but neither of them compared favorably to Mary. At 18, I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic, had no spiritual tether, and became morally ambiguous. Add in the drugs I was taking, marijuana, psilocybin, LSD, Benzedrine, Hashish, as well as small doses of opium and meth, and I was a train wreck looking for a place to happen.
I joined the Navy in February 1971, and by December of 1972, I was depressed, half-drunk, half-high, and extremely lonely. I was on the
USS INDEPENDENCE (CV-62), had been aboard during the last four months of a deployment to the Mediterranean, and was trying to survive living on board a ship in the midst of an overhaul. Living conditions were noisy, dusty, and hot in all the berthing compartments. I tried living off the ship, had an apartment in Norfolk, then one in Portsmouth, VA, and finally moved in with a cook who was on a submarine (also in overhaul), but got in trouble for being late a couple of times, and decided to move back aboard.
One night in mid-December, I was on duty, and had a 20-2400 watch (8pm to midnight). It was a "Roving Patrol," meaning I had to cover everything from the 03 level and above (the "03 level" is the deck just below the flight deck, and above meant everything in the superstructure, including the Bridge, Admiral's Bridge, Flight Deck Operations Control, and the mast. I was up on the top deck of the ship, and actually crawled out to a radar sponsen (a platform for a radar unit). We were in dry-dock, meaning that the ship was in a sort of "bathtub," with all of the water drained. The flight deck was 100-150 feet to the bottom of the dry-dock, and I was 100 feet above that. Looking down, I was suddenly struck with the idea that I could end all of my troubles by jumping. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't go away. I got as far as putting my legs over the side of the sponsen, when my relief (a guy from my Division) came out of the door below me and called my name. Had he been five minutes later, this would qualify as a tale from the crypt.
On the 22nd of December, 1972, I was called into the Division Officer's office, and met with my LPO (Leading Petty Officer), my LCPO (Leading Chief), and "The Boss," the Lieutenant Commander who oversaw the whole operation of the Ship's Intel Center. The Boss got right to the point, "What are you doing for Christmas?"
I explained that I was "in the hole" for leave (I'd taken more days than I had earned), and was pretty much broke, so I was staying on the ship. The LPO asked about how I was doing, and we talked for a little bit, the LCPO chiming in occasionally. The Boss interrupted, and said, "Look... we know you're having a hard time right now, so we're going to give you some time off. I don't care where you go (at the time, we needed to have approval to leave a 50-mile radius of the ship), I don't care how you get there (people still "hitched," although the Navy forbade it), but you are not to be on this ship for 10 days, beginning December 24th."
The Chief said he might be able to get me a small amount of cash from the Chief's Mess slush fund, and they set me up with the number to the Travis AFB operator on a military-only line called "Autovon," who would transfer me to talk to my parents without racking up the indecent long-distance charges (eg: a single call from Norfolk, VA to Vacaville, CA was $3 for the first three minutes, and 50-some-odd cents per minute, after the first three. A 15-minute call home would cost $10.00, or more). I called my dad, told him what was going on, and he told me to go to the airport, to the Piedmont Airlines desk, and there would be a ticket to SFO in my name (remember, this is the stone age of computers, so being able to buy a ticket in San Francisco, and have it picked up in Norfolk, VA was not an everyday request. The next best thing would have been to Western Union the money to me, but I had a "non-standard" address (meaning it wasn't a street address, or a regular Post Office box), so they wouldn't take it.
It was a grueling flight, from Norfolk to Atlanta, and I had an aisle seat across from a young child who coughed and sneezed the whole way. When I got to Atlanta, and down to the Delta terminal, I found the gate for the 747, and the seating was packed. I went up to the desk (I didn't have a "reservation," I was flying Military Standby, so I was in uniform) and the attendant had a line of stand-by tickets that ran the entire way across the desk. He started to put my ticket at the back of the line, and something caused him to pause and ask, "How long has it been since you've been home?"
"Two years." I replied. He looked at me, seeing my ship's patch on the shoulder of my dress blues, he counted down, and put me fifth from the top of the list. He looked at me and smiled, "See all of these? They belong to people who are just getting out of Boot Camp in Florida. They haven't been home in a couple of months, a few more hours won't hurt them. Merry Christmas, Sailor." I was the last person to board the plane.
It was pretty cool, the last seat on the plane was upstairs in the First Class Lounge. There were eight stewardesses assigned between the regular First Class, and the Lounge, four and four. The flight was routed through Dallas-Ft. Worth, and it was amazing, the plane pulled up to the gate, and so help me, almost everyone got off the plane. A few got on, headed for the Bay Area, but it was four stewardesses and me up in the Lounge from DFW to SFO. One went to help downstairs, but the others decided to go "deadheading" (not working, just another body on board), and we struck-up a game of Hearts. We played a few hands, one excused herself to the restroom, I stood up and stretched, and asked if they minded if I changed into civvies (civilian clothing), and the said it was OK, but I had to use the one restroom currently occupied by the stewardess. I agreed, and when she stepped out, I took my clothes and hopped in, locking the door.
The first thing was the familiar odor of marijuana (remember, people could smoke on planes back then, and pot was a felony). The second was somewhat embarrassing, as I almost got stuck in the aircraft restroom, trying to get out of my dress blue jumper. Somehow I managed, and came out of the restroom to see a stewardess who was blushing rather profusely. All I could say was, "What?" They all laughed. The guilty party had told her co-workers what she had done, and they were a little concerned about how I would react. It turned out that one of the other stews had a pilot friend who used to go to Thailand a lot, and she had a "Thai Stick" in her bag. During the rest of the flight, we took turns taking "hits" off a one-hit pipe, and taking shots of Tequila. We got pretty wrecked, and had a great time.
I have no idea what my dad thought when I came staggering off the plane, but I was pretty "fuh-up" when we got to SFO. I got in on Christmas Eve, and spent the next three days on my parents couch, suffering from the flu I got from the kid on the plane to Atlanta, coupled with the hangover from too much Thai, and way too much Tequila.
When I finally got to where I had no fever, and felt like I wanted to get out, I picked up the phone, and dialed a number from memory. Usually, when I'd get to Vacaville, I'd call my buddy Bill, but it wasn't his number I had dialed. During my flu-sickness, I had a lot of time to think about the direction my life was taking, since I had seriously considered taking my life, I knew that something was missing. I wasn't happy, and it wasn't because I was stationed 3,000 miles from home, and would be going another 7,000 miles on deployment... It wasn't being in the shipyard, with all the heat and noise... Those were superficial things. The biggest thing was that I had no one in my life. I was alone in a crew of 6,000. I had friends, lots of friends, but no one to love, or to love me.
Recuperating on my folk's couch, I tried thinking of when I had been truly happy, and what it was that was different in my current situation. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were a couple of things missing. The first was, perhaps, the most important, I realized that I no longer had God in my life, and that there was a side of me that was starving for spiritual nutrition. I thought of my old Lutheran Pastor, John Zeltin, who helped awaken me to my spiritual side, and how I used to hang on his every word during sermons (I kind of had to, he was born in Russia, and had a thick Russian accent). Pastor Z would actually talk to me, and listen patiently, while I questioned some of the dichotomies in the Lutheran doctrine.
I hadn't been in a Church from 1965, when we moved to Vacaville, on any steady basis, the closest I'd come to church was attending something the Mormons called "Mutual" on a few evenings, and that Stake Quartet Festival in Napa... and all of those were with... Mary Gardner... I wondered, "What is Mary doing now-a-days?" But that had been a day or so before, so why was my first call to Mary?
I won't bore you with the conversation, suffice to say that she was actually very pleased that I had called and asked how long it would take me to "come over". I said 20 minutes, she asked if I could make it ten, I said OK, and she said, "Good. See you in five minutes." That's the way I remember it, anyway...
I got one of the fastest showers ever, threw on some civvies, and drove over to her house. I parked out front, walked to the door, and the most amazing thing happened. When I knocked on the door, I don't know what I expected to happen, but the door opened, and this absolute vision of loveliness speaks my name, opens the door, and greets me with a hug.
I had "a moment," I realized exactly what was missing in my life. I knew, from the moment she opened the door, that I still had very strong feelings for this woman. We were inseparable for the following week, and I came to define "strong feelings" as love. We went to a New Year's Eve party at my sister's house in Vallejo (actually the house we lived in when she went to high school), and on the way home, I expressed those feelings to her. Her reply? "How can you say that?" It wasn't what I expected, but it was a good question. I told her that I still loved her from before, from our time in high school. It was true, and now I was man enough to do something about it. It was hard, having to say good-bye again, but she said she would try to come to Norfolk, if she could, before we deployed to the Mediterranean.
I got back to the ship, and was immediately packed-off to an Intel System's Operator course at a small Naval Air Station in Southwest Georgia for 8-weeks. While there, I discovered that one of my instructors was Mormon, and we talked a lot. Mary had mentioned having a "Temple wedding," and my instructor explained what that meant, but I was so head-over-heels for Mary that I would have agreed to just about anything. We wrote almost everyday, pages upon pages of "love letters," and I ached to see her again. In February of 1973, I asked her, in one of my letters, if she would consider marrying me. I called her, after I was sure she had gotten the letter, and asked her if she had given my proposal any thought. She was in her apartment in Provo, UT, a student at BYU, and her three roommates were there. They all screamed "YES!" at the same time, almost deafening me in my right ear.
When I got back to Norfolk, I had a talk with the guy from my Division who relieved me from that watch, and found he was a Mormon as well. He arranged for me to meet the Missionaries at his home, so I could take "the discussions" (a series of lessons on Church history, philosophy, and structure, with an explanation of The Book of Mormon, which I read on one of our short, post overhaul runs (a series of circles outside of the Chesapeake Bay) that lasted several days. When we got back, I told the Elders that I was ready to be baptized, and become a Mormon. Mary had made arrangements to come to Norfolk on April 5. Unbeknownst to her, April 6 was set up to be my Baptismal date. We told her that we were going to attend a baptism so that I could see what went on, we just didn't mention that I was one of the ones to be baptized.
I could make this a lot longer by telling you what it was like to be freshly baptized, and trying to live my new religion aboard an air craft carrier on deployment, particularly when your LDS Group Leader for the ship was the point-of-contact for porno movies, and most of the other Mormon guys were not real faithful about their conduct. The other Mormon-guy in my Division had transferred, so if it hadn't been for a guy I knew on the USS GUADALCANAL, giving my name to the Branch President in Athens, Greece, I may have gotten in a lot of trouble.
The Branch President was an Air Force Major, in charge of Supply at the U.S. Air Force Station, Athens. His name was Lloyd Vivian, and there are a host of stories I could tell about him, but he took me into his home, treated me like a part of the family, played host to my parents (who came for a week), and introduced me to Autovon, a government telephone system that I could use to call home, without incurring huge phone bills. This amazing man taught me more about being hospitable than any other person in my life. That and a great deal about the life of Mormon families.
When I got back to the U.S., the ship was, once again, in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, for a clean up, and a modification to add more berthing spaces, as the ship's company was growing. Instead of the usual 3,000 crew and 3,000 air crew, the ship was going to have 4,000 crewmen, and still 3,000 air crew, 7,000 people in all. We had decided that sometime in April of 1974 we would have a temple wedding, until my folks found out that they wouldn't be able to attend. My mother was incensed by the idea of her only son getting married, and she not be able to attend. The answer, "You could always join the Church..." wasn't received very well. When my great-uncle and great-aunt passed away, and no one in my family thought to let me know, I took 30-days leave, and had every intention of having a "civil" wedding before I left home.
This wasn't an easy "sell" to a woman who had been Mormon since birth, and had been raised to accept nothing less than a "sealing in the Temple". I told her that I felt like the Mormon Church had abandoned me once I was baptized, and that I would not be ready to become an Elder (a Temple requirement) by April of that year, and maybe even the next. I told her how much I loved her, and wanted to start a life with her then, not some ambiguous date in the future, when someone asked why I was still a Deacon. I had learned a lot about being a Mormon, what it meant, what they believe, but it wasn't from the people I "lived" with. Back in the "Old Boy's Navy," when men went to sea, and their wives "waited" (when I was single, I met my fair share of "deployment widows," if you know what I mean). It wasn't like everyone took off their wedding rings as soon as we shifted colors -- a Navy ritual when a ship pulls out to sea, the "colors" (US flag) is shifted from the "Fantail" (back of the ship) to the main mast -- but there were a lot of them. I tried to find some of the LDS Group aboard the INDY, but they told me that they were "State-side Mormons". I kept my morals, but I drank a lot, and re-started smoking, while we were deployed. I needed her to be in my life, because when I was with her, I didn't need all that other crap.
I wore her down, over time, and I agreed that we would get married "now" (March 28, 1974), and sealed as soon as I became an Elder. That was in June of '75, and we were sealed "for time and all eternity," at the Oakland Temple on July 3. We celebrate both Anniversaries.
I'll never forget the first time I saw her in her Wedding Dress. All in white; long, dark hair cascading down her shoulders, in contrast to the dress. My Best Man, George, whispered in my ear, "She's beautiful, man." I couldn't speak, but I bobbed my head a couple of times, I just couldn't find the wind to agree. This was the absolute BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! I married my Best Friend, the person who would always be there for me. Fast forward 25 years, and on March 28, 1999, we attended Sacrament Meeting in the Alamo Chapel, at 1:00 pm. Exactly 25 years to the minute.
Around that time, I was teaching English at Vacaville High School, and I would put reminders up in March, for our Anniversary on the 28th. My students would ask, "How long have you been married?" I'd tell them 25, 26, etc., and invariably the girls would all go "Awwww!" and one of they boys would say, "How can you stay with one woman that long?" I'd tell them that my parents had been married for more than 60 years, and they would look at me like I was nuts. I'd say, "My advice for a long marriage? Marry the person you have the easiest time talking to, who you know would never betray your confidence, and who will be with you through good times or bad. A marriage falls apart when communication gets difficult or impossible. I know this from personal experience. What never failed to shock students was my belief in a marriage that exists beyond death. "You mean, like, forever and ever?"
Don't think I've been fortunate to have lived in "wedded bliss" all this time. We were legally separated in 1981. I've written about that in another blog, so I won't further extend this.
After 43.5 years, it still amazes me that we're still together. We are polar-opposites on so many things, but we make it work. She likes murder mysteries, on TV, and other forms of crime dramas. Me, I like to channel surf, and have a certain attraction to animation. We have shows we watch together, we also have two TV's in the living room, so if there's any viewing conflict, no one has to leave the room. It's also great to be able to watch TV and have a Giant's game on the other one. The important thing here is that our differences are what makes everything right.
I've often said that, "Marriage is an institution... an institution for the insane, but an institution nonetheless." It has been my biggest blessing to go insane with such a wonderful woman as my Mary. This is the woman I get to spend Eternity with, and whenever that thought crosses my mind...
I smile...
