Bobbye and I were married at the ripe old age of 18 and 20 in a small Church in a village in west Texas on June 4, 1948. As the old saying goes, we didn't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. I was still in the Air Force with about five months remaining before I was to be discharged and if my memory serves me correctly I believe I was making about $90 per month as a Sergeant.
A real honeymoon was out of the question and believe it or not, we went with my parents to a place called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico,on a fishing trip! I don't believe this would be the ideal honeymoon for most people, but Bobbye had lived with my parents for several months before we were married so they probably knew and loved her more than me since I had been gone from home most of the time for about 7 years.
We spent several days fishing for Rainbow Trout on the Rio Grande River .Bobbye had never been exposed to fishing before but within a few minutes she caught a large fish. My father came running over to help get the fish in and discovered it wasn't a trout. It was a Carp, what he called a 'trash fish'. He said a few 'bleeped' words and threw the fish out into the brush. Bobbye threw a walleyed fit screaming, "You threw MY fish away!" We then had to go get the fish so we could take a picture of her with her first fish!
As soon as we got back from our 'honeymoon' we went to Smokey Hill Air Force Base, A B29 Bomber base in Salina, Kansas. We had an extremely expensive mode of transportation�.a Greyhound Bus. When we arrived in Salina we started looking for an apartment. I reckon God looks after some people who are overly optimistic because we found one in just an hour or two.
We were so young and dumb we had no idea that finding a place to live might be any problem at all. Our first 'home' was a basement apartment that was so small you could get out of the bed, take three steps and you would be at the door to the outside.
I had never sewn my sergeant's stripes on any of my shirts, but Bobbye was so proud of me being a Sergeant that she decided to sew them on. I came home from the base one day and she had sewed the stripes on all my uniform shirts. Upside down! I really hated to tell her what was wrong, but she took it like a real trooper and the next day all my shirts were perfect.
Quite often after work Bobbye and I would go to a small grocery store to get a package of wieners and buns, walk to a nearby park where they conveniently had barbeque grills complete with firewood. We would fix and eat all eight of them! It's amazing how little it takes to make two young and poor kids so happy.
until next time!
Doug