Fall, 1998
Volume 3, Issue 2

   A Love Story

Once upon a time, 49 years ago, she was the girl on the left.

I had just returned from three years in the army. As is normal, my high school friends had moved on and scattered hither and yon, so I was looking for some friends, especially some "heavenly bodies". And where better to look for heavenly bodies than in an astronomy class? On the first day, I carefully held back by the door as the large lecture hall slowly filled. Then I saw MY seat, there was a girl in front, one in back, one on the right, and one on the left. My study of heavenly bodies was about to begin!

First, I asked the girl on the right for coffee after class. Her name was Katy. Dark hair, petite, and 18 going on 25 in sophistication - and possibly experience. Definitely interesting. Always one to hedge my bets, on another day I followed by asking the girl on the left for coffee. She was taller, equally shapely, but 17 going on 18. Actually, she was still a hot chocolate girl, but she gritted her teeth and had coffee (and gritting your teeth while drinking coffee is hard to do!). In any event, I had two heavenly bodies to study already.

All went well for a brief period. I saw both, one at a time of course, and started giving tennis lessons to each of them. Unfortunately, one day during the heat of a lesson, my always bad memory for names failed me and I called the girl on the left, "Katy". Katy was the girl on the right, remember? That was the end of the tennis lessons! But she forgave me, as always. She must have seen something she liked, because shortly after, this somewhat shy and unsophisticated girl on the left, asked me to escort her to see the musical "Oklahoma" using the tickets her aunt had given her. (For you younger readers, this was the proper way for a lady who was tired of waiting to ask a man for a date.)

I can’t recall if it was before our first date to see "Oklahoma" or after, but Katy soon became a thing of the past and I never talked to the girl in front or the girl in back. The girl on my left became the love of my life – her name was Jeannette.

Oh, we dated and I courted, but I think we both knew within a few weeks of our first coffee that there would be no one else – that we would share life’s journeys. And that we would journey not in the Frank Sinatra "My Way" manner but we would do it "Our Way – Together".

So, on December 27^th, 1950, we were married and the first of our journeys through life began. Thanks to a small loan from Jeannette’s aunt, we had over $100 plus a 10 year old car. The rent on our one bedroom bungalow was $43.25 and fortunately only one month’s rent was required. We were too young and too much in love to know we were poor or to worry about it. But then, we weren’t really poor; we were only short of money. We had each other and the future was ours.

You may ask, "Why December 27^th, in the middle of the holidays, why not a June wedding?" Well, neither of us wanted to be apart (and the 22 miles each way to her house with no freeways was killing me and Betsy – my 10 year old Chrysler) so June was too far away, and the holidays were the only time we had school vacation and I could get four days off from my job at Lockheed for a honeymoon. And we definitely learned one thing during our honeymoon, in fact on our wedding night. NEVER, NEVER re-cork and store a bottle of sparkling wine on its side in a refrigerator.

At this point we were in the middle of our second or sophomore year in college and since, as I teased her many times, Jeannette had achieved her college objective – an M.R.S. degree – she dropped out to go to work full time as we entered the PHT journey of our life. PHT being "putting hubby through" college. We both worked the night shift at Lockheed, I went to school in the daytimes and she helped me by typing my papers (no computers then), taking care of the house and me, and understanding – understanding that full time school plus full time job meant there was little time or energy left for a social life. And as through all of our journeys, she never complained. We were partners doing it Our Way – Together.

This PHT journey took on a new twist in January of 1952 when Jeannette got an advanced degree (with my help, of course) – her M.O.M. degree with the arrival of William M. Routon, II. (And that was the morning Betsy (the Chrysler) wouldn’t start!) But we still had to "put hubby through", so although Jeannette wanted more than anything to stay home with Bill, she went back to work and together we got the job done.

With college behind us, we were ready to start our next journey, building a base for the rest of our lives. And it was off to Phoenix from Los Angeles for my new job as a management trainee at Carnation. We were still too young and too much in love to feel poor, but Betsy had died in the middle of a busy intersection requiring a replacement, we had the medical bills and costs of a baby, and needed the basics of a household. The arithmetic made it clear that my "massive" starting salary of $300 per month was not going to get the job done. So, again, my partner did not what she wanted, but what we needed.

This journey lasted about six years, two in Phoenix and four back in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, things got even more difficult for my partner since my job involved extensive travel – two to five weeks away at a time while she worked and had the whole burden of the household. She even drove a carpool into downtown Los Angeles to cover expenses. And got her only traffic ticket when she – according to the motorcycle officer – tried to run him over as she was changing lanes in heavy traffic and he was riding on the white line. Her statement of "He shouldn’t have been coming up between the lanes" didn’t help. She never forgot it and she never forgave him.

During this period, Jeannette also got her second M.O.M. degree when David arrived in January of 1958. (I mean, I wasn’t away ALL of the time.) David just missed Bill’s sixth birthday party by a week, and, yes, despite all that had to be done, Jeannette always found the time to remember birthdays even then. With a six year old, a new baby, a full time job, and a husband who traveled, things had to be difficult for her. Oh, we were finally able to vacation a bit and I did try to help her when I was home, but more often than not, the burden fell on her. But she never complained. After all, we were each doing what we had to do and we were still doing it Our Way – Together.

Then in late 1959 I got a promotion – and back to Phoenix – into management with the "big bucks". $525 per month as I recall. But it was finally enough for Jeannette to "retire" and do what she loved best, using her M.O.M. and M.R.S. degrees. With a little help from my Dad to get started, we even bought our first home. $16,000 including a full set of maple furniture and, of course, a mortgage. And we started our next journey, the longest one as measured in years, living the American dream.

And it was good. Jeannette loved being able to spend full time on us. There was Little League, Cub Scouts, curtains to make for our new home, school activities, and even a little time for Jeannette herself. It was in Phoenix during the first four years of this journey that she decided to enter the Arizona State Fair in one of the toughest categories, apples pies. And she brought home the ribbon for second place. In 1962 she got her final M.O.M. degree when Peter arrived. Our modest home was getting a bit crowded, but with love as well as people. Life was good – except for my attempt at a golf game, some things never change – but we could see that the present was not to be the future in my career. Things were changing and we had to change with them, so I went to IBM knowing that it likely meant moving from Phoenix and Jeannette’s family.

Our new career started with my being gone for almost three months while Jeannette had to keep the home, three boys, and plan the move with only telephone calls and one brief visit for support. And so we moved back to Los Angeles over Christmas in 1963 to settle into our brand new and larger home. Again it was curtains, drapes, grass and a garden to put in, but it was to be our home for over 20 years. We were living the American dream. I’m sure that for Jeannette it sometimes had its nightmares. Frequently, my hours were long – like one six month period of 80 hour work weeks – and Jeannette was left again to carry the family load. Not only did she never complain, but she did all she could to make sure that I was cared for in every way.

We did have many very good times as well. In the early years our lives hinged mostly on the boys with (again) Little League, Cub Scouts, and school activities like the neighborhood parade we put on one year for the school carnival. We had papier-mâché monkeys, a lion in a cage, and a four foot high elephant on roller skates together with one of the high school bands as everyone joined the parade to the carnival. Then there were the spaghetti dinner fund raisers for the Little League. The first year we served 600. The next year it grew to 1,100 – and I retired from cooking spaghetti. (Some of the women objected to my technique of using the same hot water over and over until it looked like cream of potato soup!) Jeannette went from Cub Scout Den Mother to Den Mother coach and on to a volunteer regional position developing and showing her organizational skills. Life was busy and sometimes hard, but good as we did things Our Way – Together.

Then one day, somewhere about 1970, a strange thing happened. We got to the end of the month and had some money left! We decided we’d celebrate our 20^th anniversary with a trip just for two, a long delayed real honeymoon to Hawaii. It was a trip that changed our lives. We loved the north shore of Kauai and we saw the tour buses elsewhere that seemed to be filled largely by the widows of couples who had waited too long. We decided to go back a couple years later and invested in a condominium. This started a thirteen year period of visits to Hawaii. It took awhile, but I finally got Jeannette to snorkel. She was not comfortable in the water, so I would hold her hand to help her, but also because I wanted her to know I was there, just for her.

With the boys growing up and starting to leave the nest, Jeannette was no longer needed at home all the time; and this was the start of our travels. In 1979, thanks to an IBM class, we had a month together in New York City. Jeannette loved NYC. She would go and get half priced tickets while I was in school and we’d go to the theater at night, or to one of the little local restaurants that had become "ours", or just go for a walk and look in the windows. For years after, we’d go to New York at least once a year. For her 50^th birthday, her gift was a trip to see the Christmas lights in which she delighted and to see the New Year arrive in Times Square. In 1980 we headed overseas for the first time to see the Swedish students we had had as house guests and for a bit of adventure. Oh, but we were naïve. The mistakes we made were good for laughter ever after. However, from the little elevator in Mainz to seeing the midnight sun, it was wonderful. We were hooked on travel.

But again, things were changing. She knew I was not happy with the new organization at IBM and neither of us were keen on Los Angeles. Little did we realize that a kitchen discussion during a party at our house would bring our current journey to an end and start a new one. When Nancy Goldstien casually asked me if I’d like an overseas assignment, before I could think, Jeannette said, "YES". It took a couple of years and a lot of help from some wonderful and unselfish managers, but in 1985 we ended our life in the West forever and started a new journey for two in England. And Volume I of these Reports.

For the first year, it was idyllic. I was not deeply involved at work so for a change I was home early each evening. We walked hand in hand in the water meadows watching the swans, ducks, coots and other birds. We strolled the narrow streets of Winchester, a city that was old when the Normans arrived in 1086. We took classes to learn more about our new home, and we met some wonderful people. We celebrated her birthday that year in Guernsey, her roots on her maternal grandmother’s side and then enjoyed our 35^th anniversary in Paris. We learned that stores didn’t have to be open at night and that there is no American equivalent to an English pub. We also learned that it required driving lessons to pass the test for a driver’s license. One of us passed the test the first time. I won’t say who but Jeannette never forgave the man who gave her the first test. From astronomy to the driving test she never did learn that what you think doesn’t matter on a test.

Of course, with what it was costing IBM to keep us in England, this couldn’t last. Again, I became caught up in work with late nights and then more and more business trips. But that didn’t stop Jeannette. Yes, she worried about the pressure on me and would have preferred that I had far less travel, but she accepted things as they were. As always, she didn’t add to the pressure by complaining. Instead she found other things to do, things from helping new arrivals adapt to finding new hobbies for herself. She took the lemons and made lemonade. She explored new things. She took classes and learned about everything from lambing and English cake decorating to lace making at the local agricultural college. Lace making became a serious hobby – fortunately, lambing and English cakes did not appeal to her. She organized parties for our English and American friends and I usually got back from the US just in time with the special ingredients that were needed. Again, we adjusted to what had to be done and lived with love and happiness; we did it Our Way – Together.

After stretching a two year assignment to four and a half, it was time for this journey to end and yet another exciting new one to begin. It was time to return, as some of our English friends put it, to the "colonies" and start Volume II of these Reports. We were headed from the County of Hampshire in old England to New Hampshire in New England. People asked us, "Do you have family there?" No. "You have friends there." Our answer to that was, not yet. And it was with the same spirit of adventure that had taken us to England that we came to New England. This journey, retirement, held the greatest promise of them all but also perils. With our love and God’s blessings and guidance, we realized all of the promise and none of the perils.

Without the pressures of career, our partnership changed. I had more time just for her and she made time for me. Time for gin rummy (and I always accused her of cheating when she won), time for a walk, time to talk over tea and coffee, time for her to watch a Red Sox game on TV and get irritated at me when I commented on the errors of the manager, and time just to sit quietly together and read in the evening. However, key to a successful retirement is also to have things to do separately. Jeannette made her lace and later the stamp embossed cards many of you have received for birthdays. She also was active in some of our Church functions and loved to sing in the choir. (I wanted to join the choir too, but Jeannette said they could only use me if I promised never to try and sing inside of the Church.) As Jeannette had her things, I had mine: the finances, these Reports, and travel planning.

And travel we did for almost eight years. A safari in Africa, sailing the Nile in Egypt, ancient Turkey from Istanbul to the Iranian border, most of Europe, the Mediterranean from the Alhambra of the Moors to Jerusalem, the Star Ferry and the tailors of Hong Kong, the gold leafed temples of Bangkok and Bali, fantastic Antarctica, snorkeling in the Seychelle Islands a thousand miles east of Africa, the Amazon rainforests in Brazil to the fjords of Chile and to sophisticated Buenos Aires, and China from the great wall to the Potala Palace of Tibet. And what was to be our last big trip, once more around the world, and this time we danced our way around on board the QE 2. We walked together on all seven continents and on our final big trip we once again held hands as we snorkeled and viewed the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

Yes, the blessings from God during this journey in our lives were great. But the greatest blessing was not the travel or any worldly things, it was time. Time to share. Time for each of us to fully realize – to feel deep inside – that we were completely and totally loved by the other. We were not just partners, we were friends, companions, playmates, sweethearts, and lovers. And these things too we did Our Way – Together.

Sadly, all journeys have to end and this one did rather abruptly in the fall of 1997 when Jeannette’s anemia was not caused by a lack of B12 absorption but by a particularly virulent strain of leukemia. As before, we embarked on this new journey Our Way – Together.

Together, but not alone. Your support was overwhelming and is not forgotten. And we had wonderful traveling companions, new friends who both cared for Jeannette and cared about us. Friends who had to tell us the chemotherapy had not been completely successful and, worse, her bone marrow had not recovered making the normal chemo follow up too dangerous to try. But with their help, we continued the journey. We lived with zest in the present and planned for the future the way we always had, together.

With that spirit but knowing all was not well, we were off again, this time so Jeannette could attend her lace makers’ convention. We saw the Wild Animal Park, visited with some family and old friends, and Jeannette got to see some of her lace making friends from around the country. However, before the week was out, the last of our journeys together through life was ended by a loving and most merciful God who reclaimed my "girl on the left" but without pain or suffering and with laughter on her lips only hours before our journey ended. And to the extent we could, we made this last journey as all the others, Our Way – Together.

Now, with a heavy heart but one filled with warm and loving memories, a new journey and hopefully a new volume of the Reports begins. May a loving God walk with me – and with you. Amen.