Other than the usual preparations one must perform before they have a wedding, life went on in pretty much the usual way. There was work each day and I was writing many a night. I went out some times with Dick Huzzard and Melvin Moyer.
On the third of August Lois came home with me and we met Richard Wilson and his new girlfriend, Marsha Kissling at the Royersford Train Station. We all went to dinner together and when we came home at 9:00 PM there were 34 people there giving Lois a surprise bridal shower.
We went out a few times with Richard and Marsha during the summer until one evening Marsha suggested we all get a motel room together. We were not into anything like that, yet, and turned them down.
On August 13 Ronald was home on leave and we went over to my cousin Bob Wilson’s farm to swim. Ronald had the girl he had invited to the Downingtown Senior Prom and stood up along with him. He went with her awhile. Her name was Jeannette Pritchard. (Pictured on right, Jeannette Prichard and Ronald Tipton.)
Meanwhile I got all my blood tests and licenses. By this time Lois and I had given into our desires and whatever chance we got to be alone we dangerously took. We were alone and a tangle of arms, Kissing each other. I was getting those urges Buckwalter had warned about in 11th grade health class. I reached a hand inside her blouse and bra and gingerly cupped a breast. I had never felt a woman’s breast before and didn’t know how wonderful it could feel. It lay in my palm and it had some weight. It was smooth, firm and warm. Lois’ breathing had increased and I could feel her heart.
She made a sound, a soft squeak and didn’t push me away. I ran my flash gently over her flesh and squeezed. She made the sound again and I felt her hand on my upper leg. She moved it up, searching, then she found my zipper and pulled it down. Her fingers were inside, touching the arousal I had. I stood away and pulled down my pants, both pair, and it was clearly visible. She began to carefully run her finders over me and I was hot and sweaty. I knew what was going to come.
I took her elbow and slowly walked her backward into the nearby bathroom. Time was running out; the fuse was short now. I knelt down before the toilet and I finished me. It exploded, more intense than I had ever experience. There was explosions one after another and the residue feel like droplets into the toilet water.
I was finished and felt depleted and weak. I was afraid to look at her. She must think me a pervert. I turned my head and she had a self smile. “I love you,” she mouthed.
I slowly guided her out of the bathroom and shut the door. I urinated and washed and pull my clothes all back into place. When I exited I wondered if she would tell me go. Instead she stepped close to kiss me.
“Good night,” said softly and I said goodnight and left.
I worried on the way home and could not get to sleep, thinking after that she may not meet in the morning as she usually did at work. I stepped from the elevator onto the sixteen floor and I didn’t see her. The layout of the floor had elevators in the center, like a dividing island between two corridors of offices. I walked down to a cross hall at the end of the floor, along the windows. This connected the two corridors and there she was, waiting. There was no sign of anyone and me quickly moved to each other and kissed, the we parted for our own departments and I knew all was right in our world.
The wedding was less than a month away when a letter came from Ronald dated August 22:
Dear Larry,
I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Enclosed is an NSA Bulletin which affirms the news I have for you. I won’t be able to be your best man. We fire annually for record and as unlucky as I am the 16th of September is when I fire and I’m afraid the only way I can get out of it is to either go AWOL or drop dead.
I’m sorry I couldn’t have found out sooner.
Sincerely, Ron
P.S. Please write.
It had the NSA (National Security Agency) Bulletin attached. I had asked Ronald to be my Best Man and he planned to ask for leave so he could be home on September 16, when the wedding was scheduled. His letter explained he could not get the sixteenth off. They would grant no passes on the day of annual rifle qualification test. This story changed as the decades passed and now he claims he did get a pass at that time, but could’t come to my wedding because one of his uncles died in a fire. This what had happened. His Uncle had spilt flammable liquid upon his clothes where he worked, the was a fire and his uncle had not survived.
Passing in delivery was a letter I wrote him on August 24, which was before I got his “bad news”. In that letter I discussed some books I was reading, a little about Lois and my fishing trip, but nothing about the evening event that followed, and a paragraph on the recent suicide by Ernest Hemingway on July 2:
“I also wonder what you think about Hemingway. You know all
I had never yet read anything by Hemingway. Some years later I would. What he did I would not do, but I came to realize why he did.
His letter was delayed in mail deliveries and I did not answer his bad news until September 2:
Dear Ronald,
Sorry you can’t make it to be Best Man. At any rate you’re still the “best man” as far as I’m concerned. If by any luck you get home that weekend after all, please come as a guest.
Rich Brown will be my best man now
Paul Miller will be my new usher.
Forget the $8.32 ‘cause I’ll get it from Paul for his suit.
I’m sorry to hear about your Uncle John getting burnt so bad at Gindy’s. I suppose you heard about it from home. He got paint thinner or something on him when Gindy’s got on fire and went up like a torch. He’ll probably be okay though. He’s lucky to be alive, though critical, and I hope he pulls through.
When you get home let me know and you can see the house.
Nothin’ much else happened, so see ya, boy, your buddy, Larry
P.S. I’m sorry you won’t make it. I thought maybe I should threaten you, but I’m not mad, you couldn’t help it, after all. C’est la vie! Est a li vita! Etc. I was going to say you better go AWOL or you won’t have to drop dead, I’ll kill you! Just kidding! Honest, see you soon, I hope.
I didn’t learn his uncle died until years later.
With the wedding in less than three weeks and Ronald notifying me he could not be Best Man, I had to arrange some quick changes. I asked my first Cousin, Richard Brown (pictured left) to take on the Best Man role. He was already on tap to be an Usher. Richard (whose given first name was Paul) and I had been close growing up, visited overnight in each other’s homes several times. My friend Richard Wilson was also to be an Usher. We now recruited Paul Miller to replace Richard Brown as an Usher.
Here we were with the name confusions again. In high school my three closest friends were Ray Ayres, Richard Ray Miller (no relation to Paul) and Richard Wilson. Now my wedding party consisted of
Richard Wilson (pictured left), Paul Richard Brown and Paul Miller (pictured Right with Lois’ Grandmother).
Following on the heels of Ronald’s cancellation, I received a call on September 7 from Robert Condon (I think my friends were almost required to have a name beginning with R) to say he couldn’t sing at our wedding. Robert had a nice voice, but he had been our second choice. He had suggested someone else and because of the status and connections of his father, the sculptor Rudolph Condon, he was actually able to secure a commitment from that personage. That personage was none other than the great opera star of the Metropolitan Opera, Marian Anderson. Earlier that year she had sang at John Kennedy’s
inauguration. Can you imagine the honor it would have been to have her come and sing at our humble wedding? I mean, who wouldn’t do back flips to have such a person come to their church to sing the wedding music?
My parents, that’s who.
When they learned, cause they didn’t know at first, that Marian Anderson was Black they quickly turned thumbs down on the idea. No Black woman was going to perform at their son’s wedding, they didn’t care who she was. I was angry once more at their attitude, but it did no good, they were adamant. I don’t think Lois’ father was anymore pleased at the idea either. He certainly didn’t swing to our defense.
Thus we had to turn down that interesting development and Bob had agreed to do the singing. Now he was backing out. I am not sure what reason he gave. Perhaps he was irked that we would refuse Marian Anderson.
Calls were made to Reverend Johnson asking if he had any suggestions for a singer. He did and thus Carol Montgomery, a member of the church, who did have a fine voice, agreed to do it. And then the music led to the next brouhaha.
My folks picked out “I Love You Truly” and a couple more traditional songs warbled at most wedding of the era. Lois and I wanted our own input into the music, and strange as this probably sounds today, our pick proved to be quite controversial and argumentative as to whether it was proper to be sung in a church. What was this radical selection of ours? Why Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein’s “One Hand, One Heart” from “West Side Story”. How dare we! And despite the fears of desecration its inclusion caused the wedding guests did not resort to a knife rumble in the aisle.]
[TONY]
Make of our hands one hand
Make of our hearts one heart
Make of our vows one last vow:
Only death will part us now
Make of our lives one life
Day after day, one life
[BOTH]
Now it begins, now we start
One hand, one heart;
Make of our lives one life
Day after day, one life
Now it begins, now we start
One hand, one heart
Even death won't part us now
We decided to be married in my church, Bethel United Methodist of Spring City. I don’t think it was a coin toss. I believe it was Lois’ choice. She really did not care for Resurrection Lutheran or its minister.
The Reverend Johnson, Pastor of Bethel Methodist, met with us to
do the vetting. He interviewed and counseled us. It was possible he could refuse to marry us you know, but he found no reason to do so. (He really didn’t try very hard.) He was an older man, so one might expect him to be stodgy, but he was not. In his counseling he advised us that the marriage bed was open to whatever we mutually agreed upon. In other words, we were not bound to the Missionary Position and vaginal intercourse. We took his advice.
We did not want to drive far on the first night, believe you me! I
drove up past Norristown on September 9 and found a nice motel alongside Route 202. It had white and pink cabins. I went to the office and walked inside. There was no one at the front desk, but as soon as I entered this dog, Border Collie I believe, trotted from the back room and stood up with its front paws on the counter as if ready to check me in. A woman soon appeared and I booked a cabin for the sixteenth.
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