My worst mistake was . . .

Engagement party

September/October 1976

. . . getting married when I was 20 years old.
 

I first saw him in March 1976.  I was 19 years old, a sophomore at Cal State Fullerton, working as a hostess at Fiddler’s Three Restaurant on Yorba Linda Boulevard in Yorba Linda, California.  He was 23 years old, a salesman for his uncle’s company, and in his second year of law school.  He came into Fiddler’s Three regularly to see his younger sister, who was one of the waitresses. I admit I was attracted to his golden tan, piercing sky-blue eyes, and jet black hair.  He was very handsome --- a cross between Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson.  The other hostesses and waitresses swooned over him and begged his sister to be “set up.”  She served him their offers along with his Reuben sandwich, cheese soup and coffee with cream.  He coyly turned them all down.

Several weeks later his sister approached me.  “I’m having a party to celebrate my 21st birthday.  Craig would like you there.  Will you come?”  I was stunned by the invitation.  I did not imagine myself pretty enough or smart enough for a 23-year-old law student. In my state of shock, I nodded my head in mute acceptance.

On Monday, April 12, 1976, I drove my red Toyota Corolla to 806 Alder Street in Brea, California.  The Corolla to 806 Alder Street in Brea, California.  The small house was filled with balloons, streamers, and beer-drinking partygoers.  Very introverted by nature, I was overwhelmed by the room full of strangers and found a safe place to “hide” -- on the bench of the player piano at the back wall of the dining room.  I sat there nervous and wide-eyed.  Suddenly Craig appeared in front of me, an Olympus camera in his hand.  “Hold on,” he said, “I want to take a few pictures and I’ll be right with you.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Wow.  Kinda arrogant,” I thought. 

He came back awhile later and said, “Do you want to get out of here? ”  I said that I did.  As we left the house for a drive in his yellow, convertible TR-6, I felt rescued by a knight in shining armor.  We were together from that night on.

The first couple of weeks he took me three times to Cask and Cleaver, a high-end steak and seafood restaurant in Fullerton.  He was so much more sophisticated that the Phi Tau and Delta Chi frat boys I guzzled beer with on Wednesday “bar nights” and at weekend “keg” parties.  He had a credit card.  He was very handsome.  What else did a girl of the 70’s need?

It wasn’t long before he declared his love.  When he said he loved me I thought, “What is love?”  I had no idea. 

After dating non-stop for six weeks, Craig proposed with tears streaming down his face.  “Will you marry me?”  We had just had sex inside a sleeping bag on the floor of the Fireside Room of the La Jolla Congregational Church, an historic brick building from the late 1800’s.  I was surprised and also embarrassed, not only at the question, but at his uncharacteristic display of emotion.  I chalked the incident up to the fact that we had been drinking, patted him on the back and agreed to marry him. What else could I say?  He was crying! 

Later that night, and we got up to explore the eerily quiet sanctuary.  Behind the pulpit was a magnificent organ with pipes that filled the back wall and climbed 50 feet to the peaked ceiling.  The wooden pews groaned as we sat on them.  Every wall had exquisite stained glass windows, beautiful in the moonlight that illuminated them.

Suddenly Craig got up and climbed the stairs to the huge organ.  He sat down on the bench, laid his hands gracefully on the ivory keys, and played Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in d minor.  In the dark, still, empty church I imagined the souls of decades of saints sent stirring at the midnight intrusion of their hallowed sanctuary.  The base tones resonated between the brick walls and the wooden ceiling and through to the very core of my being.  I was enthralled, enraptured, elevated by the music and the unveiling of this elevated by the music and the unveiling of this previously unknown talent of his.  The deliciousness of Bach’s composing, the force of the organ, the intimacy of the moment, and, still, I did not love him.

The next morning, while loading up the yellow TR-6 to attend his best friend’s wedding, he opened my door.  As I lowered myself into the car, he stopped me.

“You remember what I said last night?” Craig asked seriously.  Thinking he was looking for way out of the proposal, I quipped, “Don’t worry about it.  You were drunk.”  I started again to get into the car.  

He took both my arms and turned me until I faced him.  He looked deep into my eyes and said, “I’m serious, Melinda.  I want to marry you.”

A million thoughts rushed through my head.  I was only a sophomore in college.  Did he want me to stop going to school?  I had plans to study Spanish (my major) in Guadalajara, Mexico, for a year.  Did he want me to abandon the trip?  I was an active member of the Epsilon Tau chapter of the Sigma Kappa sorority.  I would have to leave the sorority if I got married.  Was I willing to give up my sorority sisters and fraternity parties?  Most importantly, I had known him only six weeks.

On the other hand, I had cruel, physically and mentally-abusive parents who terrorized me and made my life hell.

He had a credit card.

He was extremely handsome.

He was already making a good income.

In a few years, he would be an attorney.

Still, I did not love him. 

I looked into his blue eyes, kissed him, and promised to be his wife.

January 8, 1977, was a cold, cloudy Saturday with intermittent drizzles and rain.  I spent the morning watching reruns of The Three Stooges, until it was time to leave for the church.

At 4:30 PM the organ pelted out the first notes of “Here Comes the Bride”. Four hundred guests stood up, turned towards the back of the church, and watched me step into the aisle on my father’s arm.  My waist-length hair was pulled back and covered in a beaded cap and veil.  All 127 pounds of me was dressed in an empire-waist wedding dress I had designed and sewn myself.  Cream-colored satin, layered with lace on the bodice and 10-inch cuffs, each with a row of six satin-covered buttons tucked into hand-sewn loops. Thirty more buttons and loops, from the top of the high collar to the top of my butt, decorated the back of the dress.  Dangling from my neck was a gold necklace and heart locket he had his best man deliver to my dressing room just before the ceremony was to begin.  The locket was my “something new,” and I also had a penny in my shoe.  I know there was “something old,” “something borrowed,” and “something blue,” but, for the life of me, I cannot remember what they were.

As the organ played and music filled the sanctuary, I stepped out to where countless brides had walked before me to participate in that time-honored ceremony where a man leaves his father and mother to be united with his wife so that the two could become one flesh.  A smile on my face as I looked through netting into the faces of wedding guests I mostly did not know, I pondered the union of marriage and the man waiting for me at the other end of the aisle, smiling nervously in his maroon tuxedo and tie.

“I wonder how long this will last,” I thought to myself. “Well, at least he doesn’t hit me.”