LEAVING OREGON COUNTY GOING INTO ANOTHER WORLD THE WEDDING It was Sat. and I had a quick hamburger at Virginias Cafe in Alton. The Alton high school band was going to be coming around the Alton court house square and as I looked out the window by where I was eating I saw my dad setting on the square, so i decided I would go watch the band go around with him. In front of the band was two Majorettes, twirling their batons. As they approached my dad looked at me and said, thats your girl there. She sure is real pretty, are you going to marry her? Now I was only 16 years old and getting ready to finish high school and she was 15 years old. I had money in the bank because I limited myself to things I needed but didnt buy things that I wanted because Darlene and I had gone together for three years and I knew the time would come when she would be my wife and I wanted money to start a new life on. I was very mature and had been working a mans job since the age of 13. When I was 16 and she was 15 we got engaged and I still had between $350 and $400 in the bank. To answer my dads question as he knew we were engaged, I told him, yes she will be my wife. I jest got some things to figure our first. Dad then asked me, whatcha have to figure out? Well I got a few months of high school to finish and then I will be 17 and she will be 16. Her mother has given her permission to marry me, but I didnt know what your thinking would be about signing for me. My dad began to tell me how my mother and him got married on her 16th birthday and I couldnt have picked a better woman. Let me tell you son, you are more of a man than any one I know your age, you have worked harder at a mans job, since you have been 12 yrs. old, you have saved your money, more than anyone I know. You got a good head on your shoulders. I will sign for you to get hitched. For a few months I had taken food and checked on an old man who lived by himself just a few blocks from where I worked. He passed away and his son had heard of me and asked me if I knew anyone who would like to rent the house and I told him I was getting married and would need a place to live and ifn it wasnt too much I might be interested. The house was three rooms all in a line, and did not have any back rooms to it. I had been told it used to be a dairy mart that sold ice cream. It had a bed room on the right side with a nice iron bed with good mattress and linen on it. The middle was a living room with a nice plastic green couch and chair to match and a padded seat chair. The bath room was small but it worked just fine and I was real proud to have an indoor bathroom. the kitchen was well stocked with dishes, pots and pans which were all nice, and the stove was old but still looked good to me. Off the kitchen was a small room where the refrigerator set and a door into it from the kitchen that could be opened or closed. I wondered why a door that you could open or shut would be there, and I found out a little later. The refrigerator had a motor on top and when it come on it was pretty loud, so the door would have to be closed to keep down the noise from it. All the floors had nice linoleum on them and it was in very good shape. Everything in the house was old but had been cared for well and it seemed like a mansion to us. When someone would visit we made sure they knew we had an indoor bathroom, because we were proud of it. I asked the man, how much do you want for rent for this house and he thought for a second and said,$15 a month and for another $15 I will sell you every thing in the house and so I agreed. The timing was perfect because it was in May and we had set the wedding on Memorial day weekend so I would have Monday off and Larry Wallace, my boss was letting me use the feed truck, because I had no car. We had planned our honey moon. Darlenes brother and his wife was going to take us to Beck picture shop in Thayer to see a western starring Gene Autrey. I found that to be a real thrill because above the entrance way was a lighted modern sign with their name on it. Wedding day had arrived and Darlene has bought her a real pretty dress to get married in and I was going to used my graduation suit. When I graduated from high school girls wore dresses and the boys wore a suit with white shirt and tie. Today I notice that kids wear everyday clothes with the gown over them. Our gowns also were similar to todays but you were dressed nice under the gown. My high school gown came from the big clothing store in Thayer (I believe it was called Olds) and back in those days you got the pants that would fit your waist and the legs had to be hemmed to fit the leg length. They would hem them for you but it cost another 50 cents, so mothers usually did the hemming. When I got home with the suit I stood in a chair outside in the shade of a tree and my older sister was going to do the hemming. As I stood in the chair I fell off and made a tear in the left knee. After the hemming mom sewed the tear up and it didnt look bad. As I said, the day was here and I was very nervous and dressed in my suit and shirt except for the tie. I reached into the drawer and got the wedding ring and laid it on top of the table in the bed room so I would not forget it. Mom and some other ladies were already out in the field gathering wild flowers to decorate the church with. After they had finished we put about a half of tub of water around them and I loaded them on the back of the truck and off we go to the Nebo church. I had many things running through my mind and felt a little like the joke my older brother had played on me when I was small and eat my first banana. I took a pretty big bit of it and chewed it up and he asked me how I liked it and I told him the inside was real good but the outside was bitter. I was leaving home for good and passing my spot in the family to my younger brother and that was a bitter time in some ways, but I was getting one of the prettiest girls in Oregon County and a indoor bath room and that was very sweet. I didnt know you had to take the peeling off the banana at that time and now I am taking the peeling off and going to be happy with what was sweet in life to me. Now I aint ever claimed to be the smartest man in the world, but on this day I did many things wrong. I got the tub of flowers with the water in the tub off the back of the truck and set them on the ground, then climbed back up to get the ones that had fallen out. Now you would think as big as a truck bed was the chances of jumping off into the tub of water and flowers would be very little, but when I jumped off, my feet landed in the middle of the tub of water and flowers. My wedding shoes was full of water and my good socks were dripping wet and my suit was wet up to the knees. Two hours to the wedding and I was a mess in all I had that was nice. I put the tub by the door where the could decorate the church and was going to have to do some fast thinking.. I figured if I pulled my socks and shoes off and tie my socks somewhere to the truck in back that I could get them dry and maybe my shoes would dry some also in back of the truck. I even thought about pulling my pants off and let the legs hang out the window with the window rolled up to hold them in place and then decided not to, I didnt want to drive home half naked and the dust on the roads might really mess them up. The ladies were going to stay at the church and not go home before the wedding so as they use to say, I put the peddle to the medal on that truck, I got up to 50 or 55 in some locations. When I got home my pants didnt show the wet area much and my socks were still wet but I was going to wear them anyway and my shoes looked like I had a good polish job on them, so I put on my tie, combed my hair good and headed back to the church even though it was going to be an hour and fifteen minutes before the wedding. In about fifteen minutes I pull up in the church parking lot and some one met me and took me around the building and I went through a window into a small room where I was to wait. In those days a groom could not see the bride the night before and the day of the wedding until she walked down the isle. If you did it meant bad luck and I didnt need any more of that. The green smell of the wild flowers filled the room and I was checking my billfold and reached in the front pocket for the ring and it wasnt there. Then I remembered it was on the table at home. I cracked the door to the little room a little to get someones attention but no one noticed and I could got out because i might see my wife to be. I still had 45 minutes and it took about 15 minutes to get home so I crawled through the window and put that truck in fast gear again. Then I got to thinking, if someone comes in that little room and not find me they might think I had a change of mind and left. This thought made me push a little harder on the foot feed. If everything went well I should be back about 15 or 20 minutes before the wedding was to start. When I pulled up the lane I wasted no time in trying to miss anything in the road. When I got to the house I turned the truck around and went through the front door like there was no door there. I picked up the ring and decided just to hold it in my hand until I was ready to put it on Darlenes finger. I got to the church and thinking I had about 15 minutes left but when I crawled back through the window preacher Pickney was standing in the door and asked if I was ready. (My watch was a little slow.) and I told him yes and we walked out to start the wedding. (I often wonder if he didnt think, whats that boy doing crawling through the window). (To be continued)
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:48:54 +0000
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