Tell Us About Your Life Events

[Edwin]

If you would like would you tell us about events that made your life special? I have a quite a few of them as all of us do. Two of those happened on our honeymoon in 1968. Okay here goes with the old man living in the past! Carol and I were getting married and we were very excited as you can imagine. Carol thought maybe she was going to be an old maid because she was 27 years old, and back then in this country girls got married usually much earlier than that. I wanted to get married badly, but up to that point I hadn't found anyone that worked out for both of us, but with Carol and I, well this was one of those weird romances that only lasted a few weeks, and bam we were married. One elderly, busy body lady in the church accused Carol of being pregnant, because most of her daughter got pregnant before they got married, and why else would you get married after going together only 3 weeks? Well, it took us about 2 years for her to get pregnant, so out the window with that theory! The day we got married I was working for my Dad and brother, combining wheat in the field. We ran three combines. My Dad and brother and I each operated a combine, filling a truck with wheat fairly fast. The fields were large, like 100 and 180 acres each many of them, and my Dad and brother farmed a lot of acres. Well, I got off the combine at the last minute because during wheat harvest it is important to get in all the hours that you can. Well, time I took my bath, cleaned up, got to the church, I was late for the wedding pictures, and Carol didn't know me very well, and thought maybe I got cold feet and skipped the wedding. No, I was just late as I was for many things I was supposed to attend.

Anyway after the wedding, after opening presents, and short time at her parents' house we headed out on our honeymoon. We didn't think about going on our honeymoon on a holiday weekend, Labor Day Weekend, so guess what? We could not find a motel anywhere as we drove South on Hiway 97! So we headed over one of the passes that goes to Seattle, Washington. We were not actually going to Seattle, but that was one of the passes we needed to cross to get where we were going. I got too tired to drive at the summet, so we pulled over and slept in our Volkswagen at the summet. I found out later that Carol was really embarrassed as cars drove on by, realizing we were on our honeymoon because of the decorations that were on the car!

[Edwin]

Two other interesting events that took place on that honeymoon were the icecream scoop and pushing our car. I was just in the kitchen and saw the icecream scoop, and that reminded me to write this post! Yes, after 44 years we are still using that same icecream scoop, and it has special memories. Our daughter bought me some Tillamuch Blue Berry Icecream for Father's Day is the reason the scoop is out. We stopped at a medium sized town in Northern California, maybe the size of Spokane or a little bigger, I'm not sure. I think it was Redding, California. We got a motel, as it was past the holiday now, and it was easy to find vacancies in motels! There was a large grocery store about a mile from our motel. I was a farm boy, so walking a mile for anything for me was like going from the kitchen to the living room. Distances didn't make much difference to me, and I am still that way. Carol said that she would like to have some icecream, so being the wonderful bridegroom that I was, I headed for the grocery store. I was a farm boy, so being in a large grocery store, larger than we had at that time was an experience. So I decided first to get the icecream scoop, so that the icecream would not melt while I looked through the store. That was thoughtful of me, wasn't it? Anyway I looked through every isle of the store before picking out the icecream. By the time I got back to the motel, Carol was fit to be tied. She was just sure that I had changed my mind after a couple of days of honeymoon and had abandoned her. She still didn't know me very well! Anyway I returned, we had our icecream, and had lots more fun driving South through California, the farm boy and the small town girl!

[Edwin]

Another funny memorable thing that happened on our honeymoon was our car! We were driving a Volkswagon Bug. They are really light, and as long as you didn't get into a wreck with them they were a wonderful little car. We enjoyed ours and had two of them within the first few years of our married life. We did get into a wreck with the second one that could have killed us all, but the Lord was with us, and all that happened was that we had one infant, our youngest daughter on the floor with cuts on her face and head because of the glass, and they were not bad cuts, not much more than scratches. I hit a large steer that my brother, who was the brand inspector for the government at that time, had found for this rancher. The reason he found the steer is that it had crawled a fence. Well, now this critter had crawled another fence, and after I killed him with our car, the owner said, well, he won't be crawling any more fences!

Anyway back to our honeymoon, and our drive South in California. I had been to California when I was 4 years old, and now at 23 years old on our honeymoon we were returning to Southern California, Los Angelos, to be exact, where my older sister lived in one of the suburbs. It was amazing because when we were driving through Los Angelos, I turned on the exact exit that I needed to go to my sister's house, and I didn't have any idea where I was going! It was one of those small miracles. Anyway, we called them, and my sister and brother-in-law came to meet us and show us the way to their house. Anyway the cellenoid contact on the ignition key switch burned out as we were just coming into Northern California, and every time we had to start that car, we had to push it! What we was that I pushed from the driver's door, and Carol pushed from behind, when we got it moving as fast as we could, I hopped in the driver's seat, pushed in the clutch, put it in, 2nd or 3rd gear, popped out the clutch while Carol was still pushing from behind, and wa la, our car was running! When we got to Los Angelos, my brother-in-law took me to a car parts store, and we got that ignition key switch. All the time we were in Los Angelos that car started fine, but as soon as we left Los Angelos heading North, it quit working, and we had to push start it every time until we arrived at where we were going to live our first year of our married life. I bought another switch, and it lasted as long as we had that car until the engine gave up and quit running!

[red]

I enjoyed reading your story sir. So memorable honeymoon. So when is your wedding anniversary if you dont mind us know it.

[Edwin]

It is August 31st. We were married August 31, 1968. I am glad that you enjoyed reading my story of our wedding and honeymoon. It was a memorable occasion. This is one of those things that everyone is unique, and so they have unique experiences on the honeymoon. Things like not being able to find a motel were frustrating then, but funny now thinking back on it. Then that icecream scoup was fun, and even the car breaking down added something special to think about later!

[red]

Wow so close to ours. Me and my hubby will celebrate our 6th years on August 27. We had our honeymoon at Cebu Plantation Bay. Cant forget that place.

[Edwin]

Yes, it is very close to yours! Actually I made a mistake. I wanted to get married on my younger brother's birthday, 2 years younger. The problem was that I didn't remember his birthday right. We were married on August 31st, and my brother's birthday was on August 30th, but no one knew or cared. He came from California for our wedding and then stayed in Washington until he died 6 months later, and I still miss him a whole lot! We did a lot of fighting, and I teased him unmercifully, but I told him I was sorry and he told me that he did not hold it against me. We loved each other actually inspite of me tormenting him, teasing him, and picking fights with him. I was really a nice guy, wasn't I? I suffered a lot of sad feelings, and wishing that I had been nicer to him, but often times that's the way it happens with siblings. I do still miss him though.