AUG 2, 18 .. AUGUST 2nd 1958 .. SIXTY YEARS AGO TODAY ..

Thank You Simon ..

It was you Simon ..

Who ‘coined for me’ ..

The saying ..

“Wandering the Streets of My Mind.”

Patti and I, along with ‘countless’ other friends, wonder where you are, how you are doing, and wish you well Simon.

See, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, when I sit down here at the keyboard and actually begin to compose a Post. I do not have a ‘clue in a carload’ where we are going to proceed to.

Oh Yes. Yes Indeed, I certainly had a plan of what I am going to write about, but I had NOT planned on the above photos of Simon. Simon is pronounced as Sea Moan rhymes with cyclone. It is NOT Simon as in Simple Simon was a Pie Man.

So we will begin again.

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AUG 2, 18 .. AUGUST 2nd 1958 .. SIXTY YEARS AGO TODAY ..

I will never ever, until I die, or until I lose my memory, forget this date-in-my-history.

August 2nd 1958 was a Saturday. I was in Westfield, New York, and at (somewhere around) 2 p.m. Beverly Joan Bowers (Bev) and I were married. I was a young, enlisted member of the U.S. Marine Corps, out on boot camp home leave.

I’d met Bev in the summer of 1957 where we two were working at the Grand Hotel, on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Love at first sight. I looked into her eyes, thought to myself, “This is who I am going to marry.” To some extent, that-was-that. We two had exactly, precisely, one single date, during our 2-3 months on the island. In August 1957, I left the island to return to the University of Michigan. On January 29th, 1958, I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and shipped off to San Diego and MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot).

I got sick (pneumonia) during bootcamp and, during the full month of April 1958, I experienced a month-long stay in the U.S. Naval Hospital, Balboa Park, San Diego, California. Lying in the hospital, alone, one day soon, my life was to change. I received a letter that Bev had mailed to me in January in care of at my fraternity house at Michigan.

Fraternity Brothers, being Fraternity Brothers, did not forward the January letter to me until April.

So? Bev and I began a letter-a-day (I kid you not, what else did I have to do in the hospital) correspondence.

Back to boot camp I went. I finished boot camp in July 1958. I wrote Bev I’d be coming back to Michigan on boot camp leave.

Bev (totally unbeknownst to her parents) got to Detroit the day before my arrival. She was going to wait all night to meet me when I arrived. Somehow, word of this madness got to her folks (who were unaware of who I was) who called my parents who went to Detroit Metro to ‘fetch’ Bev so she did not have to stay-the-night at Detroit Metro.

A week later, while we two were visiting Mackinac Island, and the Grand Hotel, on the lawn there, I asked Bev to marry me. We did just that, on August 2nd, 1958.

We had a great life together. Son Robb was born in 1959 at Tripler Army Hospital, Honolulu, Hawaii, while I was stationed at Kanohe Marine Corps Air Station. Son David was born in 1962 in Detroit, Michigan, where I was getting my Civil Engineering Degree at Wayne State University.

In February 1975, our son David was struck by an automobile while on his way to school in Frankfurt, West Germany. He lived, but two major operations, 8-months apart, and the stress therefrom, sowed the seeds for our divorce in 1979.

So?

There-you-have-it. Some mind wanderings that August 2, 2018, brought into my consciousness. Perhaps some history for my two sons to muse over. We did some court-ordered professional counseling to no avail. The final breakup of our marriage was beyond, and worse than, merely being brutal.

In January 2008, Bev fell in her home in Florida, hit her head, and passed away.

No one, not a single one of us, is getting out of this life without nicks and bruises and cuts and scars. This life Ain’t-A-Free-Ride for anyone.

My friend and buddy and professional associate ‘Zilla, was witness to the breakup and chaos that lasted 3-years while I continued to work in West Germany.

‘Zilla, Thanks for your undying and continuous support during those horrific 3-years.

Robb and David, your mother and I were ‘meant to be together’ for life. Our marriage was not a mistake.

Love Dad

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