On August 29, Marjorie and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. In this story I’m gonna try to capture the main gist of the first ten years of the roller coaster ride called our life together.
Of course, this is my perception. Someone else might see it differently, but I’m the author and you’re stuck with me.
Okay, honeymoon’s over. It’s September, 1964. Get back to work. No. Actually, our honeymoon went on for about three years. I was flying my butt off as a C-130, then C-141 airlift navigator. The bad news is that I was gone a bunch. The good news is that I was flying all over the world to some fantastically interesting places eg. Panama, Brazil, the Congo, South Africa, Britain, France, Spain, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, Viet Nam, Thailand, India, Pakistan. etc. I would typically be gone a week and then home with a good bit of free time.
Every homecoming was like Christmas. What did you bring me? Jewelry from Thailand, Brazil or Japan; monkey pod wood from the Philippines; a brass tray from Karachi. Also. Some kitschy things like a camel saddle or a taxi horn from Saudi Arabia or India.
Oh, by the way, we found some time to be with each other cause two of our children were born during that crazy time. Christine in March, 1966 and Jim in March, 1967. Wow.
That crazy schedule was broken by a great Air Force opportunity called Ohio State University to earn my MBA. Circa 1967-1969. Crazy transition from traveling worldwide to staying home ALL the time. Marjorie and I had to actually get to know each other.
Marjorie was a superb partner during that challenging time for me. She typed almost all my papers, and there were a bunch. She kept the little ones quiet while I studied and pretty much ran the household while I played student.
Well, I graduated with an MBA in spring, 1969 with the inevitable orders to Vietnam. No surprise. We moved Marjorie and the kids back to the same apartment complex we lived in before and I was off to Tan Son Nhut to navigate EC-47’s circa August, 1969-August, 1970.
Marjorie was the true hero, caring for a two and three year old while I merely had to fly my missions and survive to get back home to them ASAP.
As my tour in Nam was coming to an end, I opened a dialog with the friendly Personnel folk there to figger out where to serve next. Air Force paid for my MBA, so I knew I was going to an accounting and finance job somewhere. Those of us returning from the “war” zone had some priority in reassignment, so I asked for assignment to the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in Denver, Colorado. Lo and behold, that’s where they sent us.
We spent the last four years of our first ten years together in Denver, a lovely, scenic location with lotsa snow. I had the most rewarding and entangling job of my Air Force career, managing the pay accounts of our POW and MIA brothers. I wrote in detail about that job in a prior story. Oh by the way, our son, Jeffrey was born in July, 1971. So at the end of our ten-year marriage ride, we had three young’uns Christine was 8. Jim, 7 and Jeffrey 3 No challenge there. Now, til next time, enuf.
Well, if you had that many kids in the first couple of years, then you must have had time to get acquainted. We can assume at least, that you were talking to each other.
Oh yes. We talked a lot. But as I said. Every time I returned from Japan, Pakistan, France, etc, it was like Christmas and a honeymoon combined. That combination can have consequences.
Much later our daughter was having challenges raising her son. She asked me ‘ “What were you thinking? Having three”. I answered, “ Who says we were thinking?”