A Rendezvous to Remember: A Memoir of Joy and Heartache at the Dawn of the Sixties

by Terry Marshall

  Thanks, Lieutenant.

  Chilling words. The only cheer I could muster was that no MPs stood guard at the last table. No one was on hand to shanghai me that very day.

  At my car, I paused and reread the form. Twice. My hands shook. My knees felt weak. I had passed their damn physical, but here was the catch-22: Now my draft board had a new weapon—primed, sighted in, and ready to fire. Their next step could be an order to report for induction. If they did, my lawyer advised me to report. Once there, he said I should refuse to cross the line, refuse to take the oath. That’s when he would step in to take on the legal battle.

  At that point the whole game would change: With the CCCO and a lawyer on my side, we would transform my personal struggle into a national one. If we won that war, we would eradicate the policy that religious belief was the only legitimate basis for conscientious objector status. We would change not only my life, but the life of every man whose conscience would not permit him to kill another human being.

  These were heady stakes. Despite the indignities of the physical itself, I had won a small victory here—I’d taken an essential step toward confronting this odious draft law head on. But today I had obeyed every order the army medics made—next station, please. Did I have the guts to actually refuse to step forward when the time for induction came? I dreaded the thought.

  A half hour later, as I pulled up to the News-Herald, I realized I no longer had to fear that the MPs would haul me out of the office or smash down my door in the middle of the night. All I had to fear was the daily mail.

  Ann

  Early February 1965, Glendale. After I turned in semester grades, I carved out an hour to go shopping for Jack’s birthday, coming February 19. He liked books, loved art, so I got him The Agony and the Ecstasy, about Michelangelo. I mailed it the same day. Less than two weeks later, he sent back a thank-you on a Valentine’s Day card, saying he had read it and planned to see the movie adaptation of it that weekend. He noted that he had visited my folks on his way to California and left the promised wedding-gift bowls with them. In passing, he mentioned he would leave for Vietnam in two months. He signed the card, “Auf Wiedersehen.”

  Clearly, he had decided against visiting me in Glendale. I dropped his valentine on the table, pulled the vase from its place of honor on my shelf, and ran my fingers over the luscious curves and swirls. What a princely farewell. Yes, farewell to you, too, my more-than-friend.

  By contrast, Terry’s 1965 valentine wish to me was simple, whispered over a quesadilla at La Cocina, “May this be your last Valentine’s Day as a single woman.”

  Ten months earlier—in the spring of 1964—Terry had been the interloper in the romance Jack and I were nurturing. On April 19, 1964, Terry had given me a corsage on my birthday, taken me to dinner and a movie. Jack had sent the handblown vase and the bouquet of a lifetime. I never imagined how things would play out, Jack keeping his promise to reunite the three pieces, even if I married someone else. I loved him for that.

  Terry

  February 1965, Glendale. As a relief in our harried lives, Annie and I spiced up our evenings now and then by stirring up dinner before our editing and lesson-planning sessions at her kitchen table. Each night, when we began to fade, we kissed good night, and kissed again, before I stumbled off to my cottage.

  Late one weeknight, I stopped by her place after a contentious union meeting—I had to unload. We talked it through and next thing I knew, we were kissing, touching, and exploring. Over long minutes, piece by piece, our clothes fell away. Wrapped in each other’s arms, I prayed silently she would allow my guarded, millimeter-by-millimeter exploration its full reign. She was fearful of getting pregnant, the trials of unwed motherhood etched in her psyche by Rachael, Gretchen, and Laura Lee. We took our time, no rush, and I made sure we were protected.

  That night, gently, simply, we melted together.

  Ann

  February 1965, Glendale. One night after ten, my doorbell rang. It startled me. I hesitated, but opened the door a crack: Terry! He was stone-faced, eyes piercing.

  “What’s up? You okay?”

  “We need to talk,” he said. No greeting. “Garbage men are talking strike—the city fired the union president. At their meeting tonight . . .” His voice was as tight as piano strings. “Their working conditions are worse than disgusting! You gotta hear this.”

  “Okay, but take a deep breath. Quit pacing. Sit down and tell me.”

  Throughout the fall, Terry had reported on efforts by city employees to form a union—and on the city council’s opposition. Now the council had fired the guy who started the union.

  Smoldering with fury, Terry spun out a litany of complaints from the union meeting: The trash trucks had no hydraulic lifts. The men used brute strength to heft full cans to their shoulders and hoist them into the bed. They all had tales of slipped disks, torn muscles, or pinched nerves, as well as puncture wounds from glass shards, rusty nails, or jagged wood scraps.

  “So what do the garbage men want?” I asked.

  “The basics: decent working conditions . . . safe equipment . . . a grievance procedure, for crying out loud!”

  “Are you doing a story? Tonight?”

  “Can’t. I promised them confidentiality. But soon. Our readers need to suffer the pain of their injuries. Feel the injustice when the city won’t cover medical costs.” He paused, searching for words. “And, yes, I want all of Glendale to take a deep whiff of the stench: putrid garbage, festering in metal cans in the Arizona sun. It’s incredible that so many people dump unbagged crap into their trash cans—rotten meat, rancid cottage cheese, spoiled fruit and slimy veggies, an occasional dead cat. And dog shit. Lots of dog shit!”

  “That’s revolting.”

  He sat down at my kitchen table and thumbed through his reporter’s notebook, spilling out heartbreaking stories from individual workers. Nearing midnight, I stood up and stretched this way and that, trying to banish the kinks from my back. His stories had both energized me and left me spent.

  I moved to the sofa and patted the spot next to me. His eyes were bloodshot and hair frowzy. “Take a break, Ter. Let it evolve. You can’t write it until it’s ready.”

  He slumped down beside me and sighed. “It’s late. I really should go.”

  “Yeah. You should,” I said. But neither of us moved.

  He looked sideways, leaned over, and kissed me. “Thanks for listening. It really helps.”

  I kissed him back. Next thing I knew, we were entwined together, kissing and hugging. We slipped from the sofa to the carpet. One thing led to another, and it just happened. We made love, right there on my living room floor, after all my months of holding back.

  Was it bliss? Was I ecstatic? Actually, it was rather awkward. And scary. But thrilling too. And complete. It was more than simply having sex. It was the missing piece in the mosaic of our love.

  “You know what else I think?” I said, wrapping my arms around him. “I’m proud of you. Of your passion. You care about people.” No question. We were meant to be.

  February–March 1965, Glendale. I still hadn’t written to my folks about our new wedding date, nor had I begun to plan. After the semester-end hump, I wrote my parents a double whammy:

  We can no longer think of any good reason why we should wait until summer to marry. We plan to go to the Peace Corps this summer, which will involve more difficult adjustments, so we need time in between marriage and the Peace Corps. I fear you may not approve of the Peace Corps, but I must live according to my own conscience, and this is one thing I must do. I am sure. The best date for us would be March 13.

  I didn’t mention that we planned to marry in Silverton—that came two days later when I called them. Silence at the other end of the line. I thought they’d hung up. In the end, they caved on Silverton and the imminent wedding date—by then five weeks away—and, in a series of letters, threw their weight against the Peace Corps specter:

  February 9, from Mom: We do hate to
see you join the Peace Corps, taking things the hard way.

  February 10, from Dad: I am wondering why you would take two years out of your life. I don’t see where Terry figures he is going to toss a couple of years away.

  February 13, from Mom: It’s a shame for Terry to give up his job, now that he is editor, and for you to throw away your first year’s experience to sacrifice two years of your lives to a venture that, while praiseworthy, will not advance you in any way. Think! Seriously, carefully, logically. You have too much at stake.

  This time, I didn’t relent. And despite their objections to the Peace Corps and because the date was speeding toward us like stampeding horses, my parents jumped into wedding preparations with zeal. We were months behind any sane wedding planner’s timetable. First, we had to print and mail our clever wedding invitation. That drew an immediate veto!

  February 24, from Mom: As for the invitations, we realize that Terry is clever and witty, and I’m sure his ideas were original and interesting. However, weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime affair (or should be), and a definite etiquette and protocol allow no deviation in the invitations. Rules specify this in no uncertain terms.

  Following that, she dropped a stone tablet of essentials on our toes: An acceptable wedding meant The Dress, shoes, jewelry, undergarments; something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue; honeymoon trousseau; maid of honor, bridesmaids, and flower girl, including their outfits; bride’s mother’s outfit; ring bearer, groomsmen, organist; photographer, and flowers; choice of a silver pattern; a post-wedding reception dinner-dance, with band and caterer. Oh, and don’t forget color scheme and theme, seating chart, place settings, candles, centerpieces, favors, menu, drinks. And that pièce de résistance, The Cake. The list alone exhausted us.

  Somewhere along the line, I had an epiphany. Weddings weren’t for the bride and groom. They were for the parents. This relief valve turned some of Mom’s “essentials” into comic relief: Protocol? Rules? Indeed! Who cared? In the end, Terry and I preserved the important stuff. Marriage before June. In Silverton. Followed, we hoped, by a two-year Peace Corps honeymoon in some exotic and faraway spot on the globe.

  Mom ordered traditional invitations, embossed in a swirling wedding script on elegant stock. On February 24, I bought a simple wedding dress, by myself, in an hour, plus veil and white satin flats: $79.17. Mom picked up the invitations on March 1—twelve days before the wedding—and mailed them the next day. Over the next week, she fired off seven letters to me checking on music, ushers, gift list, corsages, boutonnieres, and champagne. She bought a special coat to get me from the church to the reception. She capped the frenzy with a lacy wedding-night peignoir with matching see-through robe. I smiled, taking it as final acceptance.

  On March 4, Terry bought a suit: $86.27. On March 5, we combed the nearest mall for a wedding ring: $85.50. On March 8, we paid Loy G. Roberts, MD, $22.50 for Arizona’s mandated syphilis exams. We passed.

  In Silverton, Allen booked rooms for family members at the Grand Imperial, reserved the dining room at the Mill Creek Lodge for a reception, and got Jim Price’s assurance that the church would be ours at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 13.

  I learned Mom had bought a book on wedding planning, which turned out to be doubly useful, since Bonner announced that same week in February that he planned to marry in May.

  I suspect Bonner’s news evoked more joy than mine. His fiancée was the daughter of an army general. And I was astonished that he’d found his life mate so quickly—after his still-secret, not-so-long-ago relationship with Fräulein Gretchen Schumacher.

  22

  Rodeo Weekend

  Ann

  Friday, March 12, 1965, Glendale. At long last, Rodeo Holiday—a three-day weekend. What rodeo? We didn’t know. Didn’t care.

  Midmorning Friday, we landed in bright sunshine at the tiny airport in Durango, Colorado, where best-man Allen loaded us into his Scout. He negotiated the fifty-mile twisting, snow-packed pass through the mountains to Silverton as easily as if it were Kansas in summer—in advance of the glowering clouds and sloppy new snow that later greeted Mom, Dad, and Jimmy. As the temperature dropped, the highway turned slick, and they slid off a curve on Coal Bank Hill. Other motorists stopped to help jockey their car back onto the road. My folks were lucky—it could have been one of the precipitous turns with no railings, no shoulder, and a free fall into the Animas River a thousand feet below.

  Terry bunked with Allen. We Garretsons checked into a three-room suite in Silverton’s 1880s Grand Imperial Hotel, still exuding dignity despite her eighty-plus years’ resistance to the elements, rowdy guests, and general neglect. Mom and Dad took the extravagant bed that stretched from wall to wall in one bedroom. Jimmy and I had separate beds in the other.

  Our reunion was the antithesis of the Thanksgiving sparring match in Albuquerque. Dad clasped my shoulder, gave me his typical half hug, and then stepped aside. His posture and look shouted, All this folderol over a wedding is the domain of women. Mom greeted me like the quintessential proud mother of the bride: chatty, helpful, bursting with joy.

  Late that afternoon, as we geared up to walk over to the church for the rehearsal, Mom breezed into my room from the shared bathroom. I had just taken my daily birth control pill from the monthly pack. She startled me. I flashed the telltale pack like a trophy and blurted, “Look, Mom, this is how the modern woman protects herself.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Annie, no, you’ve already started!”

  “Of course, Mom. You have to.” I meant it as a bit of enlightenment, the fact that a girl had to begin taking these wondrous pills a full month before intercourse to be assured they would perform their magic. She didn’t know. She saw the Pill as proof I was actively engaged in sex—in premarital sex—and no doubt with the vigor of a jackrabbit in heat.

  She was right about one thing: I wasn’t a virgin on my wedding day. For years I had held that, for me, sex before marriage was wrong. Sex was something so special I would reserve it for my husband. But in those past few months, I had come to realize that it wasn’t premarital sex per se that was out of bounds. It was sex before I had formally committed myself to marriage. By February, Terry and I had made that pledge and set a wedding date.

  But it was too late for a daughter-to-mother talk about coming of age in the sexual revolution. I shrugged, smiled, and flipped the offending pack of pills onto the bed.

  Mom regrouped and rounded up Dad and Jimmy. We bundled up and walked the two blocks to the United Church of Silverton, our boots crunching on the icy residue of last week’s snow. Terry and I had wanted simple for our wedding. This was it: a white clapboard church, red-brick chimney, and a steep, barnlike pitched roof. Inside, pews for fifty parishioners, wood floor, leaded glass windows, and unadorned pulpit. Built in 1881 by locals, it was as homey as a country store.

  We met up with Terry’s family and the wedding party and spent twenty minutes on the rehearsal—a snap once we agreed to forgo writing our own vows and to follow Jim Price’s advice. “It’s already a high-stress moment,” he said. “Why complicate it by trying to memorize something you haven’t even written? You’ll like the vows I use.”

  We adjourned to the Grand Imperial for dinner. Wine flowed. We swapped tall tales from CU and the past two summers. We laughed. We hooted. Mom joined in like she always did—but with a hint of disappointment that only a daughter can read in the eyes of her mother. What was it? Disappointment that I had chosen someone whose politics and life goals were so different from theirs? Distress that her Christian daughter was a “fallen woman”? In any event, she and Dad shone as congenial parents of the bride, despite whatever underlying heartache burdened them. Mom engaged Terry’s mother and sister in chat, and Dad talked agriculture in the San Luis Valley with a farming friend of Terry’s family.

  Saturday morning’s bright sun and blue sky belied the temperature—not even warm enough to melt the ice designs on the windows. The little church f
illed with family and friends who came from afar, Allen’s and Terry’s local buddies, and random rubberneckers grateful for a break from the frozen solitude of a Silverton winter. When the pianist struck up “Here Comes the Bride,” Dad pulled my hand through his elbow, held it an extra count, beaming as if I were marrying the famous West Pointer Pete Dawkins, and marched me to the arm of my chosen husband—a guy sporting a brand-new suit and tie, a fresh haircut, and a clean-shaven face.

  When we turned toward Jim Price, his words about the joys of marriage floated past me as if they were murmurs in a snowstorm—none registered. Before I knew it, Terry and I were facing each other, and he was following Jim’s cues in reciting the vows. And then it was my turn.

  I, Ann, take you, Terry . . . to be my husband . . .

  A regiment of fugitive tears formed. To keep them at bay, I opened my eyes wide.

  . . . to be your loving and faithful wife . . .

  The tears marched down my cheek, my voice cracked, and I squeaked out the last words.

  . . . giving myself to you and you alone.

  My meltdown at the altar was the only flaw in the day. In the reception line, one of the guests saved me by whispering, “The sun shines on a bride who cries at her wedding.” Afterward, I raced for the bathroom to repair the damage—and was grateful she hadn’t commented on my bright red nose.

  Thanks to Mom’s masterful management, the reception at the Mill Creek Inn, nestled in a forest meadow near Durango, went off without a hitch—complete with white tablecloths, red and pink decor, and name tags at each place setting. Mom outdid herself on The Cake. It was discretely elegant without too much gooey icing.

  The inn itself set the tone for the informal gathering of friends—varnished log walls like a ski lodge, wrought-iron chandelier, Navajo rugs—normally a gathering place for men in Pendleton shirts and women in colorful patio dresses. And the show outside? Giant mountains framed blue spruces, their branches heaped with frosting-like snow, while new snowflakes the size of doilies fluttered past the lodge’s wraparound picture windows.