Charlie's 2008 Odyssey - Time out

Elaine, my lovely wife of 58 years, passed away peacefully last Tuesday. Yesterday we laid her to rest on top of a knoll in Lansing's big, old, beautiful Evergreen Cemetery.   Tomorrow we will resume Charlie's odyssey.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine 2.2 - The Engagement

I calculate that overall we had 81 Saturday night dates. Somewhere about the 60th I think it was I started to get antsy. I had casually mentioned marriage, had tried out the name Elaine Woodruff to myself and thought it had a good ring to it, and on an impulse had bought a diamond ring in Joliet where I was living in a hotel. I had showed the ring to brother John to show that my intentions toward Elaine were honorable. Now how to get Elaine on board with the idea?

One Saturday night in the Fall of 1950 while saying good night I told her that I wanted to be more than her Saturday night date and since we didn't seem to be making any progress I wasn't coming back. Well that got her attention and it wasn't long before she was wearing my ring (and getting it appraised) and putting announcements in the St. Joe Herald-Press, the Benton Harbor News-Palladium and the Watervliet Record. I have already told you about our wedding.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine 2.1 - Saturday Night Dates

Having a date on Saturday night was very important to girls in our day. Remember, in those days the girl had to wait by the phone for some guy to call. I don't know when Elaine fell for me romantically but I am sure the main attraction for some time was that I was a steady, reliable Saturday night date who cleaned up pretty good. Of course my motives for showing up every Saturday night were not exactly pure.

 

In those days everybody dressed up when going out on a date. I always wore a suit  or sport coat and tie and shined my shoes. Elaine was a fashion plate. I think she spent most of her meager salary at the women's clothing stores in beautiful downtown St. Joe. One reason she could do that is that she was living pretty cheap at home at Herman & Ruth's Bed and Breakfast (and Lunch and Dinner).

 

Here is how Saturdays went. The work week with Fried Bacon & Eggs ended at noon on Saturdays. From wherever I was I would take off for Watervliet. Maybe Joliet, Illinois; Detroit or even Ottumwa, Iowa. When I got there if I had time I washed the Kaiser out in the west side yard under the big elm tree. Then shower, get dressed up and head for St. Joe down US 12. Elaine would be doing her hair and nails and taking a bath in that old claw-footed tub at Belke's and getting all prettied up for me. Always a dress (with nylons and a garter belt in those days...happily panty-hose hadn't yet been invented).

 

Taking her home in the wee, small hours of Sunday morning at first I would park in front of her house on Broad Street (a steep, brick-paved hill), climb the steep steps to her front porch and kiss her goodnight in the glow ot the street lights. Eventually I wised up and took her around the back way, a dark, dead-end alley, and kissed her goodnight in the car for a while before I walked her to the back door.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine 2 - The First Date

When I left you last I had gone to work for Ford, Bacon and Davis in St. Joe. I spent most of my time in the field in my 1946 Jeep (making a profit at 8 cents per mile) trying to get farmers to sign right-of-way agreements authorizing the construction of a pipeline across their land. Not an easy task. Every time I went to the office above the Dime Store I would climb those stairs, always tipping my hat (felt fedora) to Elaine who invariably would smile in recognition and maybe give me a "Hi".

 

From January to June 1949 I repeated that routine (though not every day since I spent a lot of time in Illinois). I made no attempt to ask her out since: 1)  At first I thought she was married,  2) I was naturally shy around good looking women, and 3) I was still somewhat wounded by her long ago rejection of me when I was a vulnerable teenager (I am sure you are thinking, "poor baby").

 

Well, there was this right-of-way agent by the name of Roy (he drove a Cadillac thus did not make out very well at 8 cents per mile) who decided to become the matchmaker between the two of us. He took me aside and told me that he had investigated and learned that: a) Elaine was not married, b) She had no steady boy friend thus presumably was available, and c) She would not refuse me if I asked for a date.

 

So this one June day while we were down for coffee Roy told me that the Chamber of Commerce was passing out free tickets for a cruise on Lake Michigan that next Saturday night. I decided that I should quit procastinating and use the free tickets as an excuse to ask for a date. Thus I headed up the stairs with a plan to proposition Fair Elaine.

 

I inquired and Elaine confirmed that there were indeed free tickets and would I like one? I said I would take two if she would go with me (smooth, eh?) To which she responded that would be nice but she had already invited a girlfriend (a "dog" who shall go nameless) and she couldn't disappoint her (to myself: "Oh crap! Not again!) so if she agreed to go with me could the girlfriend go along too?. Well, that wasn't my idea of a great first date but having gone this far I didn't want to back out so I agreed. What would you call it, a date and a half? Or half a date?

 

On the appointed evening (June 23 1949) I picked up Elaine in my freshly washed and shined 1949 Kaiser Traveler * and then picked up the girlfriend and off to the docks we go.

         * Newly purchased from Uncle Bob Thayer

 

I don't remember much about what went on aboard th SS Roosevelt but Elaine said I ran off at the mouth a lot about driving my Jeep to Alaska (not so smooth). It was a lovely night as the boat took us out on Lake Michigan and eventually back to the dock. We never did shake the girlfriend.

 

Subsequently I asked her for a second date, and she agreed, which led to a year-and-a-half long courtship, mostly Saturday nights hopping from bar-to-bar drinking "7 & 7" (Seagram's 7 Crown whiskey in 7up) and listening to the Juke Box a lot. Our favorites were Vaughn Monroe singing "Lucky Old Sun" and Frankie Lane with "Mule Train".

 

 Elaine has said that she didn't expect anything to come of our dating because I would soon be off to Alaska. Actually it was 34 years before I got there, then it was with Elaine to visit son Jim.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine I.3 - We Meet Again

Dad got a tip from a shirt-tail relative than an engineering firm in St. Joe was hiring. He and the chief cook and bottle washer and laundress encouraged me to get up early and go and check it out. It turns out that Ford, Bacon and Davis, Inc., engineers for the Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Company, had opened a field office upstairs above Murphy's Dime Store on the main drag in St. Joe. This was a big engineering firm with a home office at 1 Broadway in New York City which had the contract to build a natural gas pipeline from Texas to Michigan and Wisconsin.

 

Also above Murphy's was the office of the St. Joe Chamber of Commerece, fronted by a good looking girl with a great figure whose name I later learned was Elaine Belke. She looked like the Elaine of "Ann and Elaine" who had rejected me all those many years before down at Shadowland, although no longer a teenager. I tipped my hat politely as I climbed the stairs and wended my way back to the Ford, Bacon and Davis office (sometimes known as "Fried Bacon and Eggs").

 

There I presented my resume' to the one in charge of hiring. He took one look at it, went over to another guy and showed it to him and came back and told me I was hired. Just like that. No interview, no delay. He wanted me to come to work that day.

 

I did have an impressive resume' come to think of it; oil well drilling experience, Captain and Company Commander in the Army Engineers and engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines and only 24 years old.

 

On the other hand, maybe they were just desperate for help. Any way, when I returned home that day I already had a job. Pay $300 per month (44 hour working week), $8 per diem for room and food, and 8 cents per mile for use of my car. This was very comparable to oil company jobs in Texas in those days.

 

 Though I didn't fully grasp it at first, I had stumbled onto a great career opportunity, a chance to get in on the ground floor of a major Michigan-based project that could keep me from having to go to work in Texas or back overseas. Also at the top of the stairs above the Dime Store there was that girl who had rejected me.

 

NEXT: Our first date.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine I.2 - Time Marches On

After my humiliation that summer at Shadowland I finished High School, went off to the Colorado School of Mines for three years, then into the Army, then back at Mines after the War under the GI Bill graduating in 1948, then goofed off for several months canoeing in Canada, pheasant hunting in South Dakota and deer hunting in the UP.

 

About New Years of 1949 I began to feel a little useless and decided it was time to go to work. As a graduating Senior at Mines I had had several job offers from oil companies; Aramco in Saudi Arabia, Creole in Venezuela and Skelly in Texas among others but had turned them all down in favor of screwing off for a few months of freedom. No college, no Army, no job, no wife, no obligations. That's FREEDOM (made possible of course by living like a leech at Allen and Genevieve's Bed and Breakfast) Years later when younger brother John was living at the folks' B&B Elaine quoted Mother as saying "I wish John would get married, I'm getting tired of ironing his shirts."

Next: We meet again.

The Courtship of Jim & Elaine 1.0 - The Rejection

Last week on our 58th Wedding Anniversary I sent out the story of our somewhat disorganized wedding back in 1951. I suspect that some of you could come up with similar stories. In fact, in a telephone coversation with Don Thayer day before yesterday, he started telling me the story of his wedding which sounds even more disorganized than mine. I have encouraged him to share it with us by Email.

 

I thought you might be interested in a couple of stories on the rocky road to romance that led our wedding.

 

                                   THE REJECTION

 

Back in Watervliet High School in the 30's there was a group of three or four of us guys who would go "wolfing" on weekends. "Wolfing" consisted of driving around various towns in Van Buren and Berrien Counties in a car or pickup truck (borrowed from our parents) trying to pick up girls. The usual routine was to go to Chrystal Palace on Paw Paw Lake on Saturday night and Shadowland at Silver Beach on Lake Michigan on Sunday night. Both of these were large dance halls at which "Big Bands" (some famous, some local) played Swing Music.

 

This one summer Sunday night four of us, Bud, Bob, Louie and I went to Shadowland. The main attraction that night was a pair of good looking girls (known to us as "Ann and Elaine") who were always dancing together. After a lot of urging by Louie and Bob, Bud and I decided to ask these girls to dance. Bud, handsome and athletic, over six feet tall with wavy blonde hair, said he got the blonde (Ann)* and I readily agreed since I already preferred the brunette, Elaine. I was nearly 6'4" tall with a full head of hair in those days so as we approached the girls' table we didn't exactly look like a pair of losers.

 

 We more than met one of the girls' known criteria, namely that were were taller than they were, but we must have been lacking somewhere else since when we asked them if they would like to dance, they turned us down...and din't even invite us to sit down.

 

Well, you can imagine the state of our egos as we retreated to our table (and our buddies' snickering) and departed the dance hall with our tails between our legs. With me, it's the humiliations that I remember the longest. 

 

Elaine has said that the reason they turned us down was that they really did not know how to dance. I never bought that alibi since out on the dance floor they looked like Ginger Rogers and Ginger Rogers.

 

* Ironically, Ann eventually became the Matron of Honor at our wedding.

Next: Time Marches On

Our Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 58th Wedding Anniversary. There will be no celebration. As you probably all know Elaine has been in Assisted Living for over a year now. I told her about it yesterday but she won't remember it today. There probably will be some tears on the keyboard but I can't let the day pass unrecognized so here is our story. Some of it is funny now, but wasn't that day.

Elaine doesn't remember much, if anything, about our wedding but does remember such things as when we were parked down by the St. Joe River necking in my 1949 Kaiser Traveler and a nosy cop came up and tapped on the widow. She still laughs about that. She also laughs remembering that the day after I gave her an engagement ring she went to the local jeweler and had it appraised (for insurance purposes she protests when I kid her about it). She was properly impressed.

Our wedding was at the Congregational Church in St. Joe on January 6, 1951, at the ridiculous hour of 8 PM. I was not responsible for that or hardly any of the subsequent miscues. Grooms were not involved in wedding planning. My brother John stood up for me and Elaine's best friend Ann Layman was her Matron of Honor (both gone long ago). Brother Dick and Elaine's brothers Russ and Rich were ushers. The church was decorated with flowers and ivy from my Mother's garden was wound around some posts (Elaine took cuttings and later planted them at our home on Pleasant Grove Road in Lansing where they thrived). Hidden behind some flowers was a wire recorder (the predecessor of the reel-to-reel tape recorder) so the entire wedding was recorded. We were much surprised at that. We still have it, transcribed onto two 12" 78 RPM platters. We have played them for the family on special anniversaries.

After the wedding a reception was held at the Josephine Morton Memorial Home over in Benton Harbor. But while the friends and relatives gathered there, Elaine and I went to a photographer's studio in St. Joe for formal wedding pictures of the bride. The photographer did a beautiful job and was so proud of his work that he displayed an oversized portrait of Elaine in his shop window for a long time (I still have it hanging on the wall in my map room where I see it every day). But all that time the relatives and friends were standing around over in Benton Harbor with no one in charge, awkwardly introducing themselves, no MC and NO BOOZE. We had a ham buffee but no food was served before we arrived.

We didn't have a professional photographer at the wedding or the reception, counting on relatives to take pictures. Bad mistake.. All the pictures in the church are from the back, and the pictures from the reception look more like a funeral than a wedding. Even the the wedding party and the parents posed for the cake cutting look like we were at a wake. There were no color photos because the flash on my mother's Argus C2 35 mm camera didn't work (remember blue flash bulbs?)

To compound the boredom the bride and groom hung around and hung around.(I think that foretold my career as a garralous old man). When we finally got in my car to head out with everybody waving and cheering and I stepped on the gas of the Kaiser, the motor roared but the car didn't move. Some of my smart-ass relatives and friends had secrectly jacked up the rear end so that the tires did not quite touch. They didn't help me either as I got out and rocked the car off the jacks.

In my day if you were going out with a "Good Girl" (I Want a Girl, Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Dad) you could get to "first base" after a couple of dates but it took quite a bit longer to get to "second base" and after much longer you might get to "third base" but you didn't figure to "score" till the wedding night. The way it is with my childrens' and grandchildrens' generations could only be dreamed of by the randiest teenage boy of my generation. I can understand the male approach these days, "Why buy a cow when you can get all the milk you want through the fence?", but I don't understand how girls can blythley pass out all those "Freebies".

Any way, back to Elaine and I. Despite careful scheduling  the "curse" visited her the day before the wedding, and the one thing I got to plan, the place of our wedding night, I screwed up. I chose the Burdick Hotel in Kalamazoo. When we arrived there late it was full up and the room I got had TWIN BEDS!  Well, we were pretty tired anyway. Things eventually worked out for us as evidenced by Karen's arrival 1952 and Jim's in 1956.