CAPTURED IN A DRUG STORE!
When I was a scrawny nineteen year old kid about to go overseas courtesy of Uncle Sam, I was home on leave and sitting at a soda fountain in a little drug store out in west Texas drinking a cup of coffee and minding my own business. Then all of a sudden a bunch of giggling high school girls came in. Naturally I paid no attention to them at all, but was just concentrating on my coffee.
Well, she said OK and then we had four or five dates in the next couple of weeks. A hot date then in that little west Texas town was going to a high school basketball game or maybe even to the movies! I hated basketball games, but I had to go because the instant love of my life was one of the star players! She was a real tough (i.e., mean) player on her team too. Those gals would hit, pull hair and scratch each other something terrible to see!
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I should have known right then to be careful, but love will make you blind�.or something! Anyhow, I went on my free overseas trip and commenced to write letters to my love telling her what a horrible time I was having in that godforsaken place and how I could hardly wait to get back home. It helped a lot that I had a book on �How To Get Your Girl To Wait For You.�
Well, I got real lucky when about a year later General Curtis Le May decided he needed me in Salina, Kansas to help him run the Strategic Air Command. Shortly after I arrived to take over at Salina I got a letter from the love of my life announcing that we would be married on June 4, 1948.
Needless to say, I was overjoyed, but I thought, �When did I ask her to marry me?� (Many years later she would ask me, �Did you ever ask me to marry you?� For once I got lucky and said, �Of course!�)
On June 4, 1948 I found myself standing near the altar in a little Church on a hot evening with no air conditioning that was plum full of people. I was sorta nervous I reckon because everything started turning black. My best man poked me in the ribs and said, �Bend yer knees�before you fall down!� Anyhow, the bride got escorted up the aisle and we got thru them I do�s and I wills and before you could swat a fly, that ole Preacher said we were now man and wife.
Now, there were a bunch of mean ole boys in that little country town and I knew they were planning on doing all sorts of things to my getaway car. So I fooled them real good and left the car (borrowed from my parents) about three miles away from the Church. After the wedding was done, a friend was supposed to go get the car and bring it to the Church. Well, everybody left the Church to go to the reception. But I and my bride was still standing on the Church steps and by now, all ALONE!!!
Finally, friend comes back to the Church and says, �Where are the damn car keys?� Holy cow! I had them car keys in MY pocket! Now I don�t know how many of you know what is a �Donkey barbeque�, but I sure was subjected to one then��from my dear sweet lovely innocent bride. I never dreamed that a young gal knew so many funny words!
My first impulse was to go find the Preacher and see if we could undo all that marriage stuff, but fortunately he was already gone to the reception. In spite of the inauspicious beginning we stayed married for over fifty years. About thirty or forty of them were real good!
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