Travels With Cleo #7 Setting the Stage
It’s time to get back to Cleo based. I promise no more gratuitous pictures of movie stars for the thumbnail looking for casual reads. Promise. Ordinary people and things only from here on.
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I mean that’s ordinary, right? In the same way that Cleo was ordinary. I really wish I had some pictures to prove how extraordinary she was.
I’ve told you that Cleo and I started out together in the ‘Honeymoon Cottage’. A one bedroom rental that was just right for the two of us. It was actually pretty good for three, I got married to Karen on the 16th of June, 1973. We didn’t have much, but we pretty well filled that place. Cleo was somewhere near 6 months old and I was almost 22.
I’d spent the near two years between losing my eye and working as a union riveter in a production shop in Spokane. I was making $6.85 per hour when the minimum wage in Washington was $1.10. That would be the equivalent of $80 per hour today. I ran hard and played hard. I got drunk.
Somewhere shortly after I lost my eye I settled into a pattern of drinking every day. Before I was 21 I had friends that were of age and Idaho with it’s 18 year old drinking age less than 30 miles away. I found that I was witty and articulate (not to mention handsome) when I had a few beers or drinks on board.
I had some kind of fun. I bought a Jaguar XJ 120 for a plaything. I’d tune on it all week then take it out on the weekend and thrash the crap out of it. God, it was fun and I loved touring the little towns and taverns in the area. I had a TR6 Triumph motorcycle to ride when the spirit moved me. I had a ‘pedestrian’ 1964 Barracuda for my daily driver. Life was good.
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Something was missing in my life. I couldn’t get drunk enough to fill the obvious hole in my soul. I got to looking around and realized that all my friends were married or nearly so. I started looking for my first real victim.
Karen was a college student who was going to summer school and living in a two bedroom in Pullman, Wa with three of her Sorority Sisters. One of them was engaged to one of my college running mates. We got really good and drunk one Wednesday night and headed for Pullman to see his girl. That’s where I met Karen.
In all honesty, we were young and restless and bored. I was smitten with her beauty and culture. I’m not sure what attracted her to me. Possibly that I could drink more than anybody she knew. About 3 months into our long distance relationship (100 miles) we went looking for rings.
In all honesty, I was still an athlete who trained pretty rigorously. I was 6’ 4” tall and didn’t weigh 200 lbs until well after we were married. I was a notoriously slow bloomer, and didn’t fully mature physically until I was 23 years old. I’m still waiting on the emotional part of my maturity. I couldn’t play baseball after I lost my eye so I started playing AAA fastpitch softball. I’d play until I was 38.
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There were a couple of incidents that probably should have warned Karen off, but I suspect she wanted to ‘start a new life’ as much as I did. I fell in with a guy and decided to go on a hitch hiking adventure. We did and not only did I miss a couple of weekends, I did so without so much as a phone call. I got laid off at work and knew it would be at least a couple of weeks until I’d get called back so I was gone.
Somewhere about the time we got engaged my father asked me to come back to farm with him. He made some promises that were never fulfilled, but the truth is I loved the work and it would be going home for me. Karen was convinced she could be a ‘small town girl’ so she liked the idea. There is more than one bad choice in that paragraph. I stacked them up on a pretty regular basis at that point in my life.
So the stage was set, the players in place. The next big thing was starting.
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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Very interesting. Somehow I missed the third part of the other series, so I had to go back and read about that. I have always wanted a 'cuda'!
I finally sold that beast with 250,000 miles. Everything but the tranny had been changed a couple of times. I got $1200 for it and I kept the wheels and tires :)
Nice :)
You bought a car and then a bike. That's look interesting. You like to visit towns, me too. Have you got married with Karen or only engaged?
I bought the bike when I was in High School. I think it was my fourth motorcycle. It taught me a lot about being a motorcycle mechanic and rider.
At the risk of exposing more of the story Karen and I married in June of '73 and divorced in late '78. The story goes on.
Oooo interesting! I wonder what happens next! Ill have to check it out!
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