28 Going on 33

Today is the 28th anniversary of the day Bud and I actually got married. If you tried to tell me oh those many years ago that I would stay with the same man longer than five minutes (that's an exaggeration but not by much), or live in the same place longer than three years, or even hold the same job longer than three years (the length of my military enlistment), I would have laughed in your face and called you a dreamer. Seriously, my friends used to write my information in their address books in pencil so they could erase it when I married, unmarried, married again, unmarried again, moved (again) or whatever.  Based on my experience in the first 30 years of my life, I was totally incapable of forming lasting relationships with anyone or anything. And to be perfectly honest, I was not unhappy with that arrangement. Then along came Bud and everything in my life changed.


Bud and I met on December 7, 1976 (Pearl Harbor Day should have been a warning). We took an immediate and intense aversion toward one another, which remained in place for most of the next year. Bud was young, hard-headed, volatile, loud and intensely opinionated. He was a worker in the clock factory in Maryland where I had just been employed as part of a troubleshooting management team to attempt to bring the company back from the brink of financial ruin. Bud didn't want any part of the "new" management and didn't hesitate to say so as often and as stridently as possible. It wasn't just me he hated, it was the entire management organization. He actually had no formal leadership position among the workers in the factory, but he was obviously a pacesetter and even old timers and supervisors followed his lead.  He was genuinely a gigantic pain in the butt and often more trouble than he was worth. However, as managers we all realized his potential and took it upon ourselves to help him see the error of his ways. We felt if we could win him over to our point of view, the rest of our personnel issues would evaporate.  At one point, in an effort to demonstrate his total disregard for me, he deliberately made it seem as if he was gonna cold-cock me right on the production floor. If he had actually hit me, it would have been brutally painful because he was a healthy young man. I had seen him lift a box of clock weights that I knew for a fact weighed at least 300 pounds and walk across the warehouse with it as if it were filled with packing peanuts. If he had hit me, it would have also been the end of his employment and he would have spent some amount of time in jail for assault. I'm sure he knew these things, and I'm sure his intent was only to frighten me. Fortunately, I realized he was no dummy and he didn't really want to wreck his life, so I knew he was bluffing. I just continued to walk past him as he raised his balled fist for the strike. Oh he swung, and he missed. He hit the wall directly beside my head as I walked through the doorway. The plaster shattered, but I didn't even blink. I just kept on walking under the assumption that I had the right-of-way and should pass through the doorway first. As the pieces of plaster were falling to the floor, I looked back and said something to the effect of "you're gonna want to repair that". Was I frightened? You bet I was! But if I had shown any sign of fear, he would have won. The only way we were going to convince him we were trying to help was to show him no signs of submission. After that, things got a little better between us. He realized I wasn't just some sissy girl put in the job as a token. The rest of the management squad went about recruiting Bud in their own ways, and before too very long, he started to see his way toward the beginning of a life long career in management. He had the basic skills, he just needed to polish his edges more than a little bit. He was a born leader -- the rest was just experience and proper guidance.


Our first date was on New Year's Eve 1977. It was an accident. The secretary / receptionist I hired for the front office (yes, the same one who ended Frank's letters with Frankie) was having a New Year's Eve party at her apartment. She invited me and though I wasn't really interested in becoming "friends" with her, I didn't have any other plans so I said I would stop by for an hour or so. She told me the only reason she was having the party was because no one had asked her out so she decided to make her own fun. I did not inquire about others she may have invited as I did not expect to know any of them. I arrived at Donna's apartment around 9:00 PM or so, planning to leave long before the ball started to drop in Time's Square. As an aside (who me?), I have been to Time's Square for New Year's Eve once in my life. It is not something I would recommend to my best friend or my worst enemy. What a nightmare? It is a surging mass of humanity with no purpose other than to get drunk and watch the stupid ball drop while freezing your patootie off and being stepped on. Never again! Okay, back to Maryland 1977-1978. Around 9:30 PM Bud and his sidekick Eddie showed up at Donna's apartment. I'm sure they were as shocked to see me as I was to see them. Eddie also worked with us at the clock company and, as it turned out, had a bit of a case of the hots for our girl Donna. His lust was unrequited. Somewhere near 10:00 PM as I was starting to make excuses for why I should be leaving, Donna received a telephone call from some guy who decided at the last minute (well, he actually had almost two hours yet) to ask her out. She accepted, and turned to all of her guests and said something along the lines of "I have a date now, so you are all going to have to leave." I was flabbergasted and highly amused. Eddie was devastated and Bud was flummoxed. It seems the boys did not have a backup plan and were more than a little upset with Donna. In a move that is totally out of character for me and to this day completely inexplicable, I suggested Bud and Eddie come back to my apartment and the three of us would see the New Year in together. Also totally unexpected and completely baffling, they accepted. So off we went, me in my little brown Datsun B210, Bud in a souped up electric blue Chevy Malibu and Eddie in a white with red racing stripes Mustang Cobra. They were following me, since they had no clue where I lived. I drove through the little town of Bel Air, Maryland at about 60 mph. Those two were cussing me and calling me every vile name they could come up with because they were both in highly visible vehicles driving through a 25 mph citywide speed limit, while I was just zipping along in my unobtrusive, barely noticeable (can it really go that fast?) Datsun. Fortunately, the city cops had other things on their minds that night and none of us were pulled over.


Once we got to my apartment, and after the two guys finished berating me for my driving habits, we ordered some pizza and drank some beer. I had a collection of 45 RPM records that I had been accumulating since the early 1960's so I drug them out and started playing them. Much to my delight, Bud's taste in music was very similar to mine and he was actually well acquainted with a large number of my records.  Eddie fell asleep on my sofa.  Bud and I sat on my living room floor for the rest of the night and played every one of those records, and there were hundreds of them.  Of course we talked, and got to know each other better, and found out we had a lot of similar likes and dislikes.  Around 7:00 AM we woke Eddie up and I sent the boys off to their respective homes.  I needed some sleep.  I didn't think much would come of our "date", but I had enjoyed myself and I now had a far better opinion of Bud.


One of our topics of discussion over the course of the evening was marriage.  I'd already tried and epically failed at the institution and wasn't particularly interested in venturing that way again.  Bud had been 21 for four whole days.  He had never been married, and at that point insisted he would never be married.  I told him that was ridiculous and I would bet that he would be married before he turned 27, never for one second thinking I might be the blushing bride.  He bet me $200 that he would NOT be married before his 27th birthday.  We were married eight days after he turned 26.  He has not yet paid me my $200, but he has given me unbelievable riches in so many ways.  I think I'll let the debt slide.


Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it next), more on the love story of Bud and Carla.