Travels With Cleo #8 I'm Engaged

So. I was engaged. Cleo and I were living in the ‘Honeymoon Cottage’. The date was set. June 16, 1973. That date was chosen because it was the one Saturday in June that had the three things necessary. 1: Karen’s father didn’t have a golf tournament scheduled. 2: I didn’t have a softball tournament scheduled and 3: The church and priest were available. The stars truly aligned.

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There wasn’t any such thing as just ‘get married’. The planning and bullshit that goes along just was unbelievable. At one point Karen’s father offered us $10,000 cash to elope. Serious offer and I was all for it. I mean really. That was the point that I learned about voting in a marriage. My vote only counted if it agreed with my wife, and in this case my mother-in-law. Not happening.

Another thing I discovered through careful research. I got laid less when I was engaged than I did prior. I was to learn relatively soon that trend would continue. My state of arousal had almost nothing to do with my having sex. Ever.

I had to take ‘religious instruction’ in order to marry an Episcopal woman. It was at the least moderately interesting and I really liked the priest that handled the detail with me. I got my three or four sessions with him in and done in plenty of time then came our first real problem. I had a packet of maybe 40 pages that I had to read and several that I had to sign.

Most of them were benign enough, but when Father Mac brought out the one that said I promised to have any children of our marriage raised in the Episcopal Church, I refused. Cold.

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Maybe I should explain a little here. I wasn’t just marrying Karen. My MIL was the first woman in the Episcopal Church that was ordained to perform communion. Her sister was married to the ‘Flying Father’ the Bishop of Alaska. He used a bush plane to visit some of the more remote parishes like Nome. When he was a priest Nome was one of three parishes he served. Dog sled was the only way to get there in the winter.

So. Father Mac gave me a funny look and asked me to explain, and told me in no uncertain terms that this was a requirement to being married in the Church. I told him that I would expose any children but not promise a thing I couldn’t. I told him with Karen and her family I would expect that to be the outcome but that I couldn’t promise.

He set that sheet aside and we went through the rest. We came back to the offensive sheet. He asked again if I would sign it. I refused again. He sighed, tore the sheet up carefully, and placed it in his garbage can. Under some other sheets of paper. He never mentioned it again and neither did I. I never even told Karen. She’d have lost her mind.

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See, I was already having problems with organized religion in general. It had started early, I was banished from a Sunday School class for arguing about the Ark part of Noah’s Ark. I figured (and still do) that it was way too small. It’s a bullshit story that makes people feel good about surrendering their thought to somebody else. I was 9.

But wait, there is more. I was sitting in the big hall waiting for the inevitable storm that was coming. My father was the civilian head of the Sunday School. He wandered through and saw me sitting there. He was firmly in the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ (another bullshit story) camp and took care of that part right then and there. Then went to check with the teacher, assuring her that I wouldn’t repeat that behavior.

I learned to turn my head and say nothing. Ever. It would be my MO for a long time, until I was big enough and tough enough to not worry about it. It would come. I could wait.

We will get around to it, the getting married. There are still stories to tell, and people to meet. I hope you will come back for the next part.

All photos in this post are properly sourced and liscensed.

All words in this post are mine. For better or worse

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