Thirty-three years ago

Mrs. Jim and I got married.
We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout.* ..Our fire hasn't gone out.

It was in Clear Lake City, Texas (that wasn't a real city then, now it is the southeast part of Houston), near the Johnson Manned Space Center. A Baptist preacher (unnamed here), wearing cowboy boots, in a church that wasn't our regular church, married us very well.

Our fire didn't go out, but that preacher sure did. He left town to get rich. The last we heard he was in a lot of trouble with the law.

My best man, Mike, has left town too and we haven't seen him for several years. I do know his ex-wife died. She was cremated, her friends all threw their empty beer cans in after her ashes at their lake.

Someone is telling here. Someone who knows the wedding story.

For the wedding, the groom (Jim) was over an hour late. He had given his little Ford Pinto to his dad and mom to go on to the church. Jim showered, shaved, and dressed in his tux.

He asked his son, Tim, to put his luggage (it had the get-away clothes and the honeymoon stuff) in the TBird. Tim came back in a minute, he couldn't get the car door open. "Of course you can," his dad said, "just unlock it with the key."

But the key didn't unlock the door. Then Jim figured out he had given his dad the wrong set of keys for the Pinto, the set that had both car keys on it.

They called the church. The best man, Mike, would come get Tim and Jim. A little bit later, the future Mrs. Jim called. Mike wasn't at the church yet, she would send Dad.

Dad never came. The wedding was supposed to have started. No Jim, no Dad. The bride was crying. The organ was playing. Mike came and now he would come to the rescue. Oh boy!

Just as Mike, Tim, and Jim were leaving for Clear Lake, Dad drove up. He had gotten lost. Since he had the TBird keys, Tim and Jim could get moving.

They literally flew. There must not have been any cops around because that TBird was over 120 miles an hour most of the thirteen miles. When they got there, the preacher called the people back in, the bride was drying her eyes, and the organist was about worn out.

It was Mr. and Mrs. Jim now. Mrs Jim had promised to obey, Jim promised to love. The wedding went off without a hitch, except for one, pun here, the couple got hitched. Poor Dad and Mike were there too, they were the last guests to arrive, each had been there earlier on.

So now you know. We haven't told this story before because Dad felt like all of this mess was his fault. He felt very badly about the whole thing. Now he is Iowa and is terribly unaware of things. It was my fault, not being careful in giving him the wrong set of keys.

Mrs. Jim and I honeymooned at the Hilton in San Antonio. We have honeymooned there several times since. Did I carry her across the threshold? Of course I did, but that story can't be told.

I do know one thing; rice works. The bird lovers say it doesn't hurt the birds either. But nobody can get rich selling just rice. Ask the farmers.

Mrs. Jim and I were talking yesterday. Neither of us had thirty-three years in mind when we married. That would have been out of range, we just planned for it lasting a long, long, time.