Fifty

 

   On this day in 1973 I married Teresa Karlsson in a little county church on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. We've been here ever since. I must give a shout out to my brother-in-law Gardner McBride. Gardner, a native of New Jersey, had gone to a summer camp in Wisconsin as a counselor a few years earlier. Teresa's oldest sister Cindy was a counselor at the same camp  Gardner is a man who knows his own mind and proposed to Cindy on their first date. Cindy said she would have to pray about it that night. It was a church affiliated camp after all. God said yes. 

  The newlyweds bought a house in Hull, Mass. conveniently located next to my parent’s house. Gardner’s business took him out of town during the week. Cindy started an art gallery in town and my mother worked there part time. I was in the Philippines just then serving in the Navy. My mother wrote that Cindy's beautiful sister Teresa from Minnesota was coming to help the now expecting Cindy in the gallery. It was too bad I wouldn't be getting discharged till October when Teresa would be back in college.

  The Navy in its wisdom decided I was redundant and discharged me (honorably) in May so I arrived home not long after Teresa got there. I just wanted to relax after three and a half years under Uncle Sam’s thumb. My mother suggested I call Teresa since she didn’t know anyone here other than Cindy. She offered me five dollars and the use of her car. “I don’t need your money, ma, but I will borrow your car.

  So Teresa and I went to the movies. We went sailing in my father’s boat. We took hikes in the woods. I picked Teresa up after work at the gallery in Gardner’s Jaguar XKE and watched the sun go down. It was an idyllic summer romance. I thought it was over when Teresa left shortly after the arrival of baby Elizabeth.

  We exchanged a few letters. Nothing seemed to be happening, but I could not forget my summer friend. I invited her back to Hull for Christmas. Teresa said she’d come but not to get my hopes up.

    After a pleasant week together I put her on the plane back to Minnesota and thought that was that. Now it was Teresa’s turn to think this romance might have possibilities. After a few bumps in the road the Joe & Teresa railroad commenced to run. Linking yourself to another person for life is always going to be an adventure, but, as Walt Whitman said, “We were together. I forget the rest.”

Court-Ship