I keep
wanting to write a book about my wedding day, or even my life in
general. This is the title I always wanted to give it.
On this date
in 1984, I married Perry Ann Stewart.
Why, you may
ask, would anyone get married on New Year's Eve? Trust me, the reason
is anything but romantic.
In 1981, I
married an Amish girl named Bertha that I'd met and fallen in love
with four years earlier. I was romantic then. They say love is blind.
My love was deaf, dumb (meaning stupid), blind and stubborn. The girl
had no business getting married, and she knew it. But I would not
take “no” for an answer. So, after four tumultuous years of arm
twisting – Way past the time I should have caught on – she agreed
to marry me. I don't want to spend a lot of time on my anniversary
talking about a past relationship; so I'll just point out that on our
second wedding anniversary, she told me if she had thirty five
dollars to eat on, she would leave me, hitch hike to Portland Oregon
and move in with a guy that she knew out there. I gave her thirty
five dollars, and she was gone.
I actually
met Perry while I was married to Bertha. My cousin Tim worked at the
same hospital where Perry's mother worked, so they were acquainted
with each other. One night at a bar in Warrensburg, Perry had won a
pool shooting contest with the prize being a pony keg. She had no
idea where to go with the thing, so Tim suggested taking it to his
cousin Bob's (that's me) house where there is always a poker game
going on. So Perry, her cousin Pat and the keg all rode up to my
house with Tim to the “Perpetual Poker Game”.
Tim knocked
on the door and when I answered, introduced me to his friends and
told me about the keg, which Bertha promptly ran out and grabbed. She
wasn't very big, but she was brought up on a farm.
When I looked
in Perry's eyes, it was like I knew her. Specifically, I could see us
being together; that she would become very depressed, but that she
would never leave. All of this scared me half to death. As did the
thought that went through my mind that this woman would be the end of
my marriage to Bertha.
Through the
entire evening, I would not pay any more attention to her than was
required to function in a poker game. I wouldn't talk to her. I
wouldn't even make eye contact. This confused the heck out of Perry.
The dynamics in the room being the way they were, she didn't even
realize that Bertha and I were married. She thought Bertha was my
sister and couldn't figure out why I wouldn't interact with her.
After all, she was the hottest thing on wheels – and she knew it.
Besides being beautiful, she was built like a brick outhouse and was
used to being the center of attention in any room where there were
men. Yet, I spent more time talking to her cousin. Pat cracked
everybody up. He looked like the stereotypical Lounge Lizard. He had
the hiphuggers, the loud shirt unbuttoned far enough to see the
medallion resting in a sea of chest hairs. A freshly coiffed perm. To
everyone playing poker that night, he will always be referred to as
“Mister Disco”.
When they
left, I worked very hard to calm myself down. I kept telling myself:
“She's from Warrensburg and you live in Wellington.” “This was
just a fluke meeting.” “You'll never see her again.” “Calm
down!” I was really upset. As tortuous as my marriage was at the
time, I didn't want to give up on it. I thought marriage meant
forever. Besides, there's that whole stubborn romantic thing. I
really needed to get a grip.
I don't even
know what date that was, but I'm thinking it was in the spring of
1983. Then, on July 5th, Bertha left.
I worked for
a small town butchery at the time and they tended to lay me off in
the summer when things were real slow. So with nothing else to do, I
moved out of the house in Wellington, put my stuff in storage, and
just kind of wondered around looking for good fishing holes.
My brother
Carl had just come back from 12 years in Australia and was living
with my mother outside of Centerview, so I dropped by to see him.
While there my car broke down and I was stuck.
Carl had met
this girl and was absolutely smitten by her and kept asking me for
advice on how to win her affection. I kept trying to point out that
my wife had left me just a couple of months before – what did he
think I knew about women? But he kept on anyway.
One day my
cousin Tim stopped by and as we were talking, I mentioned Carl and
this girl he wouldn't shut up about.
Tim asked:
“Well, you know who it is don't you?”
“No. I
haven't met her”
“Sure you
have. Remember Mister Disco?”
I thought:
“OH NO! SHE FOUND ME!!!”
Carl
eventually arranged for me to meet this girl he wouldn't shut up
about. As soon as our eyes met, the sparks started flying. I couldn't
help messing with her. A sort of game developed between us to
see how subtly
one of us could mess with the other and still have them know they are
being messed with. We didn't want to actually start anything because
Carl had such a crush on her and we were both worried about his
feelings getting hurt. But the results were inevitable. Resistance was
futile. Things got started.
In January
of 1984, Perry told me she was pregnant. By this time I was working
at the butchery in Wellington again, so on February 4th we
moved into a house in Wellington.
I wasn't
thinking about getting married. I had lost all faith in the
institution of marriage. After all, I'd done it once. Look where that
had gotten me. I'd also lost all faith in romance, for the same
reason. Why Perry wanted to be with me so bad was beyond me. I was as
cold as ice. Of course I wanted to get laid, but that was a long way
from being in love. I was determined not to get emotionally attached
to anyone again. I told her over and over again: “This is purely
physical.” I also remember telling her: “Look, this is my life.
If you want to tag along, that's up to you. Try not to make too much
noise.” I'm sure anyone reading this has to think I was a first
class jerk (That's the polite term). I'm telling you, you don't know
the half of it. But if she was going to have my baby, I was going to
be there.
On July
29th, Leo was born.
During the
course of 1984, the butchery I worked at went bankrupt and the men
that owned it and I all went to work for R.B. Rice in Lee's Summit,
Missouri. By that Christmas, I was laid off again, couldn't afford to
stay in the house in Wellington, and Perry, Leo and I ended up
outside of Knob Noster, Missouri living in a double wide trailer with
Perry's mother, step-father and her two younger sisters.
Now, for the
touching story of how we got married:
Two days
after Christmas, for reasons I don't remember, we found ourselves on
the square in Clinton, Missouri eating lunch at a restaurant across
from the court house. During the course of conversation, it suddenly
dawned on me that if we were to get married before the year ran out,
I could write Perry and Leo off my taxes and even get an earned
income credit.
With not a
moment to lose, I ran across the street to the court house and
applied for a marriage license. As I filled out the paper work, I
found out there was a three day waiting period from the time I filed
the license to the time we could actually get married. This meant the
soonest we could get married would be on the 30th. I
started checking around to see where we could get the deed done and
my former boss, Glen Nadler, managed to get the pastor at his church
in Wellington to agree to do it on the 31st. All we had to
do was pick up the license and get from Knob Noster to Wellington.
This didn't seem like it was going to be a problem. It was only fifty
miles North, and the weather wasn't bad – yet. It was cold and
rainy, but for December 31st, I felt we were pretty
fortunate.
Perry, her
older sister and I headed up there in a '72 Impala. Her Mother,
step-father and her other sisters headed up in an old Dodge van.
Right about
the time we crossed I-70, the rain turned to snow. By the time we got
to Wellington, it had turned into something of a blizzard.
The wedding
was informal and strange. My former bosses, Glen and Larry were there
with their wives. Glen was actually the best man. His wife took lots
of pictures and then lost them. I didn't get to see them for 28
years. I suddenly got a phone call from her about four years ago
telling me that she had found them.
We wanted to
have music for the wedding, so Perry's little sister Nemy sang
Bread's “If”; a beautiful love song that nobody knew how to play
except me. I ended up playing the piano at my own wedding. The pastor
bought us a cake, which was great. He laid out a little spread for
us, so we had something of a reception. It may have been one of the
strangest weddings he ever performed, but it was nice. My taxes were
now taken care of and there was nothing left to do but find a New
Year's Eve party to crash.
Everybody else
headed back to Knob Noster in the Van. Perry, Carol and I went
looking for a party...in the snow.
We first
thought to check Stretch's house. He used to live across the street
from me. I woke up one morning to yelling, cussing and gun fire
coming from his place. Turns out he had become frustrated with his
record player which he threw out into his back yard and emptied his
pistol into it. He was a fun guy to party with. Unfortunately, he
wasn't home. Then, when we left his porch, the car got stuck in the
still falling snow where we parked it. I tried and tried to rock it
out of there and ended up blowing out the differential. Now, we were
in trouble.
It seemed no
one that I knew was home anywhere in that town. Carol, who was
thrilled to see snow for the first time in her life (She's from
Mississippi), was in tears because the shoes she had on were not
meant for snow and her feet on the brink of frost bite. We eventually
ended up back at the pastor's house, banging on the door because they
had already gone to bed. We eventually roused them, and they were
nice enough to put the three of us up for the night in the spare
bedrooms that they had.
That night,
Perry discovered she was NOT pregnant again – if you know what I
mean.
So thirty two
years ago today, on a very strange New Year's Eve, a woman who does
not deserve what I have put her through, officially agreed to spend
the rest of her life with a man that does not deserve the joys that
she has brought to me.
...And the
whole world parties with us. She never has to worry about me
forgetting our anniversary.
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