Abio 29: Our wedding road trip across two countries
Abio 29: Our wedding road trip across two countries
My loving relationship with Susan grew stronger as time went by. We had so much fun together. She was comfortable in every situation. We could hang out with the homeless or royalty, and she’d treat everyone with equal respect, never talking down to anyone.
I came to realize that I could even take her back to rural Ridgway PA, and she would get along with my childhood friends and family without passing judgement or getting beat up for being uppity.
I had several California girlfriends and never considered taking any of them to my childhood town. Dana was Hispanic, Dorothy was black, and my childhood friends could be racists at times.
Janet, a forceful feminist, would have likely got into a fight as soon as someone whistled at her, or called her Chickee, or complimented her on her shape and beauty. She took no guff.
To this day, she and I still argue over a Modesto encounter she had with a rude, crude, obnoxious, but well-meaning motorcycle-club friend of mine who lived in my building. He had long flowing hair, muscles, a small bullet hole in his chest and an enormous exit wound on his back. He used a stolen tombstone as his coffee table. He was forward and blunt; he spoke his mind, no matter how inappropriate his thoughts were.
I won’t tell that whole story, but he was my friend and neighbor for a year, and Janet was paying her first visit to our eight-apartment bachelor pad. He saw me eating homemade chili down the hall and barged into my apartment unannounced to get some. She was under the covers, alone, and he said some salacious things to her. She screamed at him, chased him out, and started to call the police. He came back with a butterfly knife and twirled it around in his hand to frighten her. I stood in the middle, arms out, holding them both back. Stuff like that. Several of my childhood friends live a similar lifestyle.
Susan was diplomatic and could calmly field untoward advances. She was fearless and went rappelling with me over a high cliff in the Berkeley hills; we had little Adam with us, standing at the top, watching her go over. Halfway down, Adam called out to her. “Mom! If you die, can I have all your money?” “Sure, honey,” she said. Susan also learned card counting and accompanied me to Reno where we slept in my car in the parking garage to save money for gambling. She played better than I did.
I wouldn’t last long with a spouse whom I couldn’t take home to visit family and friends. My great nephew is currently serving a two-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. He, his wife, and two kids, live in an old house down a dirt road and still heat it with wood. He’s a good kid, newly reformed, and I sent him cash to fix his leaky roof when his first child was born. I mail him paper copies of my autobiography in prison.
I was deeply in love with Susan, little Kristi and Adam. One morning I asked the kids to climb in bed with us, and I slipped down the hall to get something. When I came back, I kneeled at the foot of the bed and held up the diamond engagement ring that I had sucked off of Cheryl’s finger when we broke up so very long ago. “Would you guys marry me?” I asked. All three consented.
I wanted my mother and my whole extended family to see me get married, so the four of us agreed to have the ceremony and reception in Appalachia. This story will likely flow over into next week’s column.
We decided to make it a road trip, and we bought a new Toyota van in Vallejo. Susan was still working at the phone company, and I was off for summer vacation from BHS. We decided that the kids and I would drive a zigzag across the north, including Canada, and Susan would fly in two weeks later. Once married, we’d all drive a zigzag back across the south to California. The first leg of the trip would give me a chance to truly bond with the kids. I drove, Kristi navigated, and Adam was Adam.
We did not plan our route. It was based on random left turns with Highway 1 as our eventual thoroughfare. The first night we camped at the Winnemucca KOA and it was great – a pool, outdoor movies, a hayride around the property, and $1 pancake breakfasts. The kids were having a ball. We picked up the KOA magazine with a national map and decided to go KOA all the way.
From Winnemucca we made a left toward Highway 1 on Route 95 up through Boise and camped at a KOA overlooking at the Sawtooth Mountains. A herd of buffalo lived in the field near the campground. The kids had never seen buffalo before, and we were able to get rather close to them. Kristi was so excited that she called Susan from a payphone to tell her about it. “Don’t get too close,” Mom admonished.
In Montana we made a left on a steep, narrow canyon road and came upon cowboys on horseback herding 200 cattle ahead of us. The rear cowboy said, “Just drive through them, slowly. They’ll move.” We did, and the kids petted the cows out the windows.
We drove Highway 1 to Minot, North Dakota, and it was boring as heck. Nothing but empty fields and no amenities along the way. We crossed the Canadian border at North Dakota and caught Highway 2 through Moosejaw and Saskatchewan and further north. It was fantastic. Campgrounds everywhere, even in the middle of small towns, with free firewood. At 10 p.m. it was still light out. We drove so far north we came to an Indian village where the road signs were in their native language. We stopped at a diner to use the bathroom and couldn’t figure out which bathrooms to use. Their signs said something like Metok and Mutok. We guessed.
Back at the Canadian border, the guard had asked us how long we intended to stay in Canada. I said two or three days. He asked our destination. I said Nova Scotia. He started to laugh.
“You better make in nine days. You are as far away from Nova Scotia as LA is from New York City.” Yikes. We changed our original plan and said Niagara Falls. Slowly I turned.
We bought fireworks along the way and stashed them deep inside the van lining. When we reached the border to return to the United States, we ran into a serious problem, and it did not include the fireworks.
Our new van did not have a license plate. California didn’t have temporary plates and ours simply read “Toyota Vallejo,” plus I had two minor children with me, and we were not yet related. The guards made us pull over and go inside. I had a passport. The kids had nothing. We explained our situation that we were driving to get married in Pennsylvania. They didn’t take our word for it. They interviewed the kids away from me. Then they did a search on my VIN number and called Toyota Vallejo to confirm my purchase. And then…I ran out of space. To be continued next week.
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