reflections ~ Prelude to 50 yrs of marriage ~ Part III

110 days till we are married!!

It was nice to be able to openly talk about getting married.  Ron had decided to tell his family our plans once they arrived in Las Vegas.  I was working the day they arrived from Washington State.  I initially met them when they all passed the counter in Lerner’s and Ron introduced them as the walked past.  Not really an introduction. Shortly I took my break and met them at the food court in the mall.  It was really strained and I wasn’t sure why, chalking it up to nerves on everyone’s part.

But I was wrong, his family arrived at his apartment before he got home from work and his sister, Kathy saw on the calendar that there were days being counted off and so she followed the calendar through to December where it boldly said “Our Wedding Day.”  Needless to say, things did not start off on the best foot.  Anne was upset that they had made the trip to Las Vegas now would have to make another trip in just three months for our wedding.  And she was adamant that they be back in Blaine for Christmas as she had never been away from home for the holiday. I was asked what kind of pots n pans did I want?  What color?  What kind of dishes?  I went with the currently popular color of avocado green for the cookware and Melmac dishes with greens, oranges & browns.  Ron kept reassuring his mom that she would be home for Christmas even with us getting married on December 20^th.

I wish I could say, after that kerfuffle everything was smooth sailing but in reality, it was not.  Ron was raised very differently than I had been.  His family rarely went out to eat for meals as it was a “waste of money when we have perfectly good food at home.”  Whereas, my mom, a single mom for most of my growing up years, used her days off to take us for rides and go out to eat…usually every Sunday we went for a drive and out to eat.  My sister Kathy (yes we each had a sister named Kathy!) and I did most of the cooking during the week and on Saturdays mom would usually make a big pot of soup or her Famous Gumbo.  Well to us girls it was her Famous Gumbo.  On a side note, I still make her Gumbo but just not as often as she did as it has gotten quite expensive to make with the different kinds of sausages that are in it.  I’ve made it multiple times for Brandon and his family.  Chris dubbed it “the hotdog soup” when he was four!  And we still laugh about that.

Ron and I had stars in our eyes and just kind of looked the other way and tried to ignore the differences between our families and went on to making our wedding plans. September 1975 was filled with family visits and celebrating Joanie’s birthday ~ we always tried to make her birthday’s special as she often felt left out of things.  Being six years younger than me had a lot to do with it.  October and November were busy with finalizing plans.  The problem that was GINORMOUS to me was that the little church we had met in didn’t have a center aisle!  How is a girl supposed to get married without a center aisle to walk down???  We decided to go to Lamb Blvd. Baptist Church.  Most importantly it had a center aisle, a nice stairway to come out the front door after the wedding plus, Tammy’s dad, Gary Woffard was the pastor and Ron had become friends with Gary & Merle.  My mom’s friend, Cora offered to make my dress and plans continued to make our wedding my dream wedding.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at my house where I tried to learn from my mom how to make a turkey. It took me a few years to get my turkey to be juicy like hers.  She always made the juiciest turkey and buttery mashed potatoes. 

Between Thanksgiving and our wedding day we made a quick trip from Las Vegas back to Indio, CA.  I wanted Ron to meet my pastor and my good friend Royce Jones.  He is the one that took me to Young Life in May where I accepted Jesus into my heart.  Dalmus was my pastor and I wanted him to meet Ron and give his approval.  Not that we needed it but was something I wanted.  I asked my mom if I could go for the weekend to Indio and she said, “NO, absolutely not!  End of discussion.”  I waited for Ron to go home that night and marched myself into my mom’s bedroom and asked why couldn’t I go with Ron to Indio, we were going to be married in just a few weeks.  She just kept repeating “NO, you are not going.”  I was dumbfounded.  After a few minutes I looked at her and said, “Mom do you think I’m going to Indio to sleep with Ron?  Because that is the dumbest thing ever.  First off, if I wanted to sleep with him I would drive 3 miles down the road to his apartment not drive 250 miles to do it!!  Plus I wanted to be a virgin when I married Ron – uniting us not only with words but how God had designed it to be.”  I walked out of the bedroom and heard her say, “Okay, go!”  And we did.

The other half of this story is that once we arrived in Indio at Ruth D’s home, her and her husband were chatting in one of the bedrooms and we heard her yell “NO WAY! Is that happening here!”  Came to find out Daniel had asked her did they want to give up their bed for us and her reply told me everything.  When she came back out of the bedroom I asked her what that was about?  She said “Daniel thought you were sharing a bed here! And I told him no!!!  The memory makes me laugh and cry as I think about how two people who were supposed to know me well, would think that I would have sex before marriage and yet how funny it was that they both thought the same thing.

We did get to go to Dalmus’ home so he could meet Ron.  Before I share about our visit, I need to let you know that Ron told me he was a weapons mechanic when we met.  Being that my dad was a truck/car mechanic I just figured he worked on weapons and since he said it was on the flight line I assumed it was bombs.  We arrived at Dalmus’ home and sat down in the living room.  I introduced Ron and Dalmus.  A typical question when you meet someone is to ask them, “what do they do?”  Ron, sitting on the couch next to me calmly said “I kill people” and I yelled “WHAT???  You told me you were a weapons mechanic.”  He replied, “I am a weapons mechanic and I load bombs on planes so that means in a roundabout way I kill people.  Dalmus just laughed as I tried to figure out how to crawl under the couch!  I should have known then that life with Ron was going to be one unexpected experience after another.

The beginning of December found us celebrating my 18^th birthday!!!  I was now an adult and could get legally married without my mom’s permission!  Or at least that is what I thought.  A couple of weeks before the wedding my mom told me legally she had guardianship of me until I was 21!  To say I was in shock rocked me sideways.  She explained that when we sued the people who owned the farm where I hurt my eye (that’s a whole different story) the judge gave my mom legal, physical custody of me so that she could sue them on my behalf.  UGH…what was I going to do.  In her next breath she said “Don’t worry about it.  Here in Nevada they don’t know anything about the lawsuit.  If you are determined to get married, I won’t stop you.”  Whew!!!

Pastor Gary said he would do our premarital counseling.  We laugh about it now, because it wasn’t much of a counseling session.  He and I rode together in his truck while he ran errands.  He asked me if Ron and I had talked about children.  Yes, I wanted four and he wanted two.  But we weren’t worried about that happening any time soon as I had started on birth control pills in November.  He said that was a good thing and we headed back to the church.  We have since learned that many couples do a six or eight counseling sessions together…guess we didn’t need it because we are still together.  WAIT, that’s jumping the gun. 

Ron’s parents, brother John and sister Kathy, arrived a day or two before the wedding.  The plan was for his sister Judy to fly from Seattle to Las Vegas and arrive in time for the wedding rehearsal on December 19^th. 

Friday, December 19^th arrived as a sunny day with clouds.  I kept hoping it would not rain on our wedding day.  We had the rehearsal in the late afternoon and then had a pizza and salad dinner at Ron’s apartment for the rehearsal dinner.  Simple and easy.  Lots of laughter and nervous energy but we both kept saying we were ready!!!  One more sleep and I would become Mrs. Ronald J Workentin.  My initials were changing from MAN to MAW and I hoped one day to have lots of babies to make the name come true.

After lots of good-byes and sharing smooches with Ron I went home with my mom and stepdad and little sister.  I remember saying to my mom “I’m more excited for tomorrow than I have ever been for Christmas.”

And then it was morning!!!  December 20, 1975!!!