July 30

 

"It's time to go," he said, as I watched a smile spread across his face. My heart fluttered and my stomach rolled. I looked into his brown eyes, swallowed hard, and nodded yes. Still nodding yes, I looked at my hands covered in nickel from the slot machines.

 

"Let's wash our hands, " I announced.

With our hands clean we shared a hug, then hand in hand we walked across the casino parking lot to the Little Church of the West.

 

The time 6:20 pm. Inside we heard the organ music play and watched a wedding party of a dozen young people flow out of the church. We stood beside the door not sure of our next move.

A man stepped through the door and turned our direction. "Are you waiting to be married," he asked.

Our heads nodded and finally we replied in unison, "Yes. We are the 6:25 wedding."  

We stepped inside the old wooden church. I glanced at the dark wooden walls and pews. We signed the register and followed a man down the aisle. I imagined my parents walking down this same path thirty seven years earlier. Like us, they had both been married and divorced. They met during the war and four years later mother took the train from Wichita, Kansas to Los Angeles. My father met her at the station and with another couple they drove to Las Vegas and took a daring but happy gamble on a marriage. 

I thought if it worked for them it would work for us. After all, getting married is the easy part.

Then I heard the minister's voice, "Do you, Letty, take Jack to be your husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death you part?"

 I do.

He did.

We have done for thirty eight years. 

Oh, my Goodness. This is the first time in thirty eight years that I noticed the Matthew's name is misspelled. I am sorry Matthew. 

We have raised three healthy, happy, and wise children. We couldn't be prouder, nor happier that we took that gamble thirty eight years ago. 

I love you Jack. 

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An Opening in the Clouds--Everyday's a Miracle

Baby Helen and mother Pearl Weaver in Ardmore Ok.  

Helen Weaver

     My mother's life was full and richly rewarding for seventy-six years, and I've missed her everyday since she died August 26, 1989. With her death our family experienced a miracle, one that could only have been created by the hands of God.  Born in Lansing, Michigan March 25, 1913 to a father who drilled for oil (a Wildcatter and geologist) and a mother who had known heartache early in life when her mother died so very young, my mother grew up to be a slender flirtatious woman with green eyes and blonde hair and a lifting laughter that enticed people around her to smile.
     My mother, Helen Stapp, like her mother Pearl, wasn't afraid to change the course of her life.  Her father, Tobias Weaver drilled for oil near Bartlesville, Ok when our state was Indian Territory.  He then made his way to Indianapolis to marry Pearl Clendening, a young school teacher.  The family moved on to the oil fields around Lansing, Michigan where my mother was born.  
     Their next home was Ardmore, Ok where Tobias moved his

T.B. Weaver and Helen at Turner Falls.

growing family from a tent to a clapboard home, and eventually to a nicer home for his three children and wife who loved the social atmosphere of the boom town of Ardmore in those years. The Kansas oil fields called Tobias and his family to Wichita.  The Weaver Brother's drilling split up with one of his brother's moving to Houston and the other one to Oklahoma City.  
     As a child, I remember driving from Miami, Ok to Wichita to visit grandparents and cousins.  We often drove through the refinery area around Augusta, Ks, and I would hold my nose and say something like "Pew Wee...That stinks."  Mother smiled and turned to me and said, "I grew up loving that smell because my father said it was the smell of money."  
     My mother met dad through his sister Della when both women

Johnie and Helen Stapp, May 1946

worked at Boeing during the War years.  In May 1946 my mother boarded a train by herself for Las Vegas, where she and my father were married at The Little Chapel of the West ( Thirty-seven years later Jack and I married at The Little Chapel of the West).  
     Dad's life as a golf pro in Santa Anita, was glamorous for my mother, but family called them back to Kansas a few years after I was born.  My sister, Jonya, was born in Independence, Ks. We both grew up and call Miami, Oklahoma our true home.  
     I was forty-two when  my mother died suddenly from Septic Shock at St Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Ok.  The story of her death is the moment a miracle happened in our family.  Through her death a life was saved, her granddaughter, my daughter Katy. 

     The full length story of  mother's miracle can be found in the book Everyday's a Miracle.  Author, Paul Robert Walker, listened to my story when he was visiting Norman Public Schools in the early 90's. He asked if he could write and publish it in his book.  With a gracious smile I said, "Please do."   Mother's story "An Opening in the Clouds" can be read on pages 144-148 in Paul Robert Walker's book called Everyday's a Miracle (Avon 1995). I think you will find this true story comforting, along with the other stories in his book.  

Everyday's a Miracle   This book can be purchased for pennies on Amazon. 
Paul Robert Walker's website

Thirty on the Thirtieth

It all seemed so logical and simple at the time.  Standing next to his white Datsun B210 in shorts, t-shirt, white knee high sox and tennis shoes, Jack turned toward the apartment door where I stood and asked, "Would you like to go to Las Vegas with me?" Looking perplexed at his question, he then added, "And maybe get married."  "Maybe?" I squeaked and then screamed.  "Yes, let's just get married while we are there."   After all, my parents met during World War II and married within months of my father's discharge.  A simple Las Vegas wedding in The Little Chapel of the West had served them well, through nearly forty years of marriage.

In the two years we had known each other I had left a job and returned to it a year later; he had been laid off due to the oil bust in Oklahoma but was now working again full time at CMI.  Our kids were nearly the same age, pre-teens; my daughter and his two sons got along when we spent Saturday afternoons at the Duck Pond running, staying fit, and eating greasy hamburgers at O'Connell's Irish Pub on campus.  He already owned a suit and tie and I just needed a new dress that could be worn for a variety of occasions.   Simple.

Over the next two weeks we planned a three day weekend to the Flamingo Hotel;  my friends from Jefferson elementary quickly threw a surprise wedding shower (oh, the sexy negligees caused giggles and red faces.)   The yellow pages showed that the church in which my parents were married on May 25, 1946 still existed, but was now located out on the strip, near The Hacienda. Simple.

Wedding announcement mailed at 4:00 July 30, 1983.  Commitment

Our room at the Flamingo overlooked what is now called Bali's, but then it was the MGM remembered for it's fire on the 17th floor.  We stood in our room on the 17th floor and peered down and then across, then closed the curtains.  More nervous by the minute we decided to make the phone calls to the chapel and to the city clerk for a license.  Before leaving the hotel we mailed over 200 announcements of our wedding, ensuring that we'd go through with our plans.  Logical.

The chapel explained that they had a big wedding at 6:00 and another one at 6:30 but if it was just the two of

Little Chapel of the West

us they could work us in at 6:25.  Now all we needed was the marriage license, and maybe a stiff drink!  If only we had carried a camera, the stories that roll of film could tell would fill pages of this blog.  Arriving at the City Hall we realized that we were cold sober and standing in the midst of a circus show!  Even Elvis gets married in Vegas; striptease dancers get married in Vegas; cowboys get married in Vegas; Hollywood look-a-likes get married in Vegas;  drunks hang on to each other and yell sweet promises, and then get married in Vegas; but I was a librarian in a simple pink suit and Jack an engineer in a suit and tie.  We were so agog with the aroma of love and the dialogues around us that we flowed through the line like we were walking on rice.

Of course, we had no rings, but Jack didn't think that would be a problem in Vegas, I did.  When the quarter machine with the rotating handle that scraped and pulled at rings and coins in the giant case didn't produce a wedding band, we opted for a jewelry store and bought a gold band for me.  The last step took us to The Little Chapel of the West, but we were early.  So we entered the Hacienda casino to pass some time.  I played nickel slots while Jack played dollar slots, now that was scary to me, but the machine seemed to like him and repay him periodically.  The nickel machine simply dirtied my fingers and kept my money.  At 6:15 Jack suggested we clean up and walk across the parking lot to the chapel.

With cold sticky hands we held on to each other tightly and pushed ourselves onto the green lawn and under the eaves of the little brown church.  Much to our amazement the doors opened and a dark headed handsome man stepped out with his beaming young bride dressed in a long white gown.  As the wedding departed we watched another one form near the curb.  Just then a man stepped over and asked if we were the Watt couple.  Like clock work, we stepped inside, walked down the aisle and stood before the preacher.  Our vows sounded reasonable.  We didn't promise to obey, but to love.  With two simple but sincere "I do's" we were pronounced, to no one but the photographer and the clerk, husband and wife.  The picture was taken as proof of that moment, we signed on the license, shook hands with the preacher and walked out with a small bottle of champagne, a gift from the chapel.  As we stepped off the entrance and onto the green grass the 6:30 wedding party rushed inside the church.  Simple.

On July 30, 2013 we celebrated a lovely life together, simply, by grilling chicken outside on a cool July evening and toasting a glass of champagne.  To Love.....

Proof...the Watt couple, Jack and Letty