All you need is love...and pea salad

June 29^th is the date each year when I celebrate being one of the luckiest men alive.  It’s the day that I married the beautiful Jane Brantlinger and began a lifelong adventure of love and happiness that continues on.

We had just picked a date and were ordering the invitations for a late summer wedding when I received my orders to report to the Army on July 4 for active duty. We scrambled for arrangements, available churches and wedding party travel schedules.  June 29 was our best option.  Jane had a lot of ideas, as you might imagine, about music, ceremony, reception and other details, while my main concern was whether or not I could rise again with my bad sports knees after kneeling for a long period of time during the vows.

I gave notice to my bosses on Capitol Hill and they said I would have a job when I got out of the service.  Good insurance, but I never went back.  We took a traditional approach…marriage license at the courthouse, meeting with the minister (who I didn’t know and haven’t seen since) and selecting the black tuxes that were devastatingly hot in the 90 degree, humidity-laden DC summer weather. Interestingly, ex-KING-TV reporter, Julie Blacklow’s father rented us the tuxes.  Julie and her father and I figured this out years later here in Seattle.

We had five days after the ceremony to drive from DC to Lawton, Oklahoma, where I would be going to artillery gunnery school at Ft. Sill.  I remember buying a Mobil Travel Guide and planning our stops in Holiday Inns across the country.  The most memorable part of those stays was the same pea salad that was served at the salad bar in every hotel.  It became our first family joke.

The only real damper on the trip was that I had to sell my beloved mustang and buy us a brand new, very roomy, Chevrolet Chevelle.  It was like a tank but it did hold everything we owned at that point in our lives.

The ceremony was held on a beautiful, hot, sunny day and all was on track until my best man opened his tux rental bag about 45 minutes before heading to the church.  There were no pants.  I considered making him stand in front of the crowd that way but Jane would have none of it. So we had to arrange a frantic hand-off with Julie’s dad on the berm of the Capitol Beltway.  It worked by the skin of our teeth.

We got married at high noon because one of Jane’s relatives told her that if both hands of the clock were pointing straight up, it was good luck.  In the long run that appears to be true, though I really think we've been pretty lucky regardless of the hands on the clock.  The ceremony went great. No problems at all, including both of my knees working when I had to get up from the kneeling position.

The reception was in a nearby hotel and we had a sit-down meal.  Jane and I circulated around to each table and were able to spend time with all our guests, which was a plus for us because we didn't know when we would see them again.  When it came time for toasts, I remember most my Uncle Tom (Dad’s brother) standing up and beginning with “As I stand here with an empty glass…” My father-in-law, our host, was a bit embarrassed, but he laughed.

As soon as the reception was over, we had to jump into travel mode to be in Lawton by the 4^th.  It was a wonderful day. Jane was beaming the whole time so you know I was happy. We were told we missed a great party at my parents’ house, when all our friends drank up every ounce of booze in the closet while singing and performing show tunes at the piano until the wee hours. However, the new Chevelle got us to Breezewood, PA at the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, on time and on schedule. I can still see Jane walking slowly around in the shallow end of the pool, trying not to get her wedding hair-do wet. She still looked radiant when we went out to dinner that night and had fried chicken in the best “Tom Jones-movie” tradition.

Today our memory box is overflowing.  I love Jane more and more each year we have together.  Good friends make good mates and we spent a long time becoming friends.  Still, when we’re listening to classical music on a CD, the radio or at the Symphony, Jane will turn to me and say “You know they played that at our wedding.” And my knees begin to ache.  All you need is love.

26 Hours

He lies next to his brother. He would have wanted that, I think. Robert Francis Kennedy carried a huge burden for almost five years after his brother John was assassinated. Bobby was up to it though.

It was an electric time in DC. I was interning on Capitol Hill and quietly (because my father was a military man at the Pentagon and it might have rubbed off on him) but avidly supporting Bobby candidacy for President. Those times were the greatest influence on my political beliefs throughout my life.

I stayed up late to watch the primary returns in California. It was such a rush to see Bobby win and non-stop television coverage was in vogue so the cameras followed him off the podium and into the kitchen. Chaos ensued and you could hear the pops of the gun.

It was a surreal sight and the thought of another assassination was mind-boggling. Yet there it was, right before our eyes.

Not much is said today about the next 26 hours, but Bobby hung on. There were brief moments of real hope that he would survive.  However, the reports from the doctors were increasingly discouraging. It was excruciating as we tried to occupy ourselves between hourly reports. Capitol Hill and the congressional offices there are normally alive with the hustle and bustle and constant chatter of lawmaking.  That day it was quiet as a church.

He died on the morning of June 6 and a day later, Bobby’s body arrived in New York.  The Requiem at St. Patrick’s Cathedral made you feel as though you were one of the mourners.  The television networks didn’t take a breather throughout the entire ordeal.  Teddy Kennedy stepped out the shadows that day and his eulogy for his brother gave me chills.

His body was moved by private train to DC with thousands lining the trackside to pay their respects. I  remember people placing coins on the tracks to be flattened into remembrances by the train. It had to move so slowly that they didn’t arrive to Arlington Cemetery until well after dark.  The service was brief and very understated.  The next morning the small white cross was all that remained when I took the photo above (with my Kodak Instamatic) and, to this day, only a small plaque has been placed on the burial spot.

Robert F. Kennedy and his brothers John and Teddy had great influence on our country.  They are all gone now. So much of what and who we are as a nation was reflected in the lives of those men.  There were other assassinations that have marred our history. JFK and Martin Luther King, both were stopped short of their goals. Other Presidents, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley were shot by political idealists.  The details of their deaths are dwindling to postscripts in the history books. But for those of us alive in the 60’s, that 26 hours before Bobby died will not soon be forgotten. Nor will how those times shaped our lives.

Encore

Today is the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated.  Last year, I posted my recollections of that day for the first time in this blog.  My memories have not changed.  They may even be a little more vivid.  I'm re-posting that piece.  It hasn't changed in the past year but I may have...and so may you. Read it, if you like.  Martin Luther King made me look at our world differently.  Out of those troubled times, he made me stronger. He made our country stronger.

http://extremedanmc.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-5the-day-after.html