The Story of Us, Part 5

 

Being grown ups?

When I first asked Greg how old he was, he told me 12. And he was going to stay that way. (He was 18) then. Now 1989 but he and I finally, after 7 years in earning our 4 year college degrees, were entering the world of teaching. All grown up but possibly in denial. 

Our last year in college, we both were attending night classes, and student teaching full time at North Medford, Oregon High School. And so our hours at work for our minimum wage, fast food jobs were seriously cut back and we took out student loans to do that last year. Suddenly we were both hired to teach full time in the same district, by the coast, in the redwoods. We figured we’d stay about five years and pay off the loans and see where we ended up. 

But what a jump in income! From $4,500 dollars combined income for the year, we were hired at ten times that almost. $21,000 each plus an extra bonus of my teaching special education meant that each year for 5 years, 20% of my loans were forgiven and I never had to repay a cent. 

So we went bird brained. Greg had wanted a blue and gold macaw ever since watch Dr. Doolittle as a child. I got him two cockatiels, but he still bought himself the macaw when we walked into a pet store with one and My brother Lance was along. I asked what its name was and the store owner said, “whatever its new owner names it” and Lance leaned forward and said, “hi Becky. Becky, Becky, Becky Bird.”

We had rented a two bedroom duplex and had only three aquariums for pets. But before long we had 12 large parrots screaming inside our living room. Fortunately our neighbor, Ruby, never complained and was often gone overnight. 

We both liked teaching, he was doing classroom music for kindergarten through 8th grade, and I was teaching severely handicapped, 3-7 year old students. Summer school was only 5 weeks and several times if I took my kids on a field trip he came along. Then we often drove over 3,000 miles both summer and Christmas break going back to Wyoming and looping the perimeter of the state to visit family in three corners. 

My dad’s sister and her husband drove up from Anaheim, CA and my parents drove out from Wyoming. Through Utah, Idaho, and Oregon to us in CA. Both had about the same 1700 mile drive. 

My Aunt Rachel walked in the door and looked at those birds and gasped, “you seriously need to have a baby. Talk about misplaced maternal instincts.”

Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Germany

Summer of 1992, Greg had been singing with a Choir in the next county south, and signed up to tour four European countries. 
I came along. We did decide to get healthier before the trip and did a plan through our Dr. where we drank three meal replacement shakes and ate 8 ounces of meat and a salad each day. By the trip we had both lost about 40 pounds and we packed our luggage full of boxes of water and shake packets. All through The Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and Germany we ignored chocolates and breads and pasties. Were we Dumb? Absolutely. Still a huge regret. Idiotic and of course once we got home we fell off the diet anyway and gradually regained all the weight and more. 
But as we drank those medifast shakes we created luggage space for amber necklaces, lacework, matryoshka dolls and crystal bowls. Being pre Jurassic Park, we didn’t know what amber was until we wandered into an Alley lined with booths where every one sold amber carvings and jewelry. I even saw a huge Viking ship with chains where every link moved but were carved from a solid chunk of amber. 
We toured castles and the Berlin Wall, met two incredible tour guides, one on whom is still a dear friend. The chorale sang in cathedrals with massive organs and we saw legos and ceramics and stayed in fancy hotels and the homes of locals. I indulged in licorice and my heart stopping excitement at learning I was only a block from the Ten Boom Clock shop made me sneak away from the Haarlem Cathederal and run to see where Corrie Ten Boom had helped her family protect what Jewish people they could save, before all being captured themselves. She has always been my number one hero.

Tales from the dark side

OK, while we were living together, we had a few big fights, joking about red heads tempers and letting fly with targeted insults and actions. So by the time we got married, when Greg said, “just a warning, I won’t ever think about divorce,” and paused dramatically, before concluding, “murder maybe, but never divorce.” I was pretty confident that I could handle the worst he had to offer and that he loved me even at my worst. 
But we still had some doozies. I had been bullied as a child and was insecure and often afraid to admit to wanting to be included until I was specifically invited. So sometimes I stayed home when he went out just because he hadn’t said the right words to ask me. And my mom had similar memories, having told me once that she remembered her Dad asking her if she wanted to come along to the next town and she said, “no.” So he went without her. And she curled up on her bed and cried for the afternoon because she had definitely wanted to go, she had just wanted him to want her badly enough that he asked her again.
In my family we didn’t say what we wanted directly, often circling it in what my husband came to call Beightol-ese. My maternal side of my family would say, “I remember going to that ice cream shop up above Yellowstone.” And everyone knew to get in the car. But after 40 years of marriage my husband couldn’t figure out, or ignored, the times I pointed out a favorite place as we drove past. Then he couldn’t figure out why I was mad that he hadn’t turned around and gone in. 
This picture. Our first home together. He took the photo of me retrieving something from the trash. I’m not sure what it was that time, but I’m sure I threw it away, tore it up or something because of a moment of frustration I had no words to express. I threw my wedding ring away once and when he dug it out of the coffee grounds and washed it - threw it away again. Looking back I can’t even remember why but probably because he’d smoked a joint or had a margarita with friends. I had an unreasonable terror of anytime he had anything like that. And it became a test of “do you love me more than you need a drink.” And mind you, he wasn’t an alcoholic. I saw him hungover a few times before we were twenty and once he stuffed a baby food jar of marijuana in my lap when he was pulled over for speeding, but as college freshmen in 1982, he was nothing out of the norm. 
As we got older we argued less, and they were less volatile. Once I threw a plate at the door as he walked in at 1 in the morning from closing shift at Dominos pizza, and our downstairs neighbors jumped from their bed wondering what had woken them up. Once he stomped on my cassette tape because I ordered him to get it out of his car, because I wanted to play it in the house. A few times we screamed insults. I called him a “fuck head idiot” and after that he started signing love notes and birthday cards, “from your FHI” 
I always figured I would have divorced everyone else in my family at least once if that were a real, quick option, so I just pretended it wasn’t an option in marriage either.