KS - getting away

June 2nd 1963-The reception was next with its congratulations and laughter, feeding each other cake, tossing the bouquet and garter and changing to traveling clothes. We were to make our getaway in Mrs. C’s car until we could lose everyone and get back to where my car was hidden. A few rambunctious young men had placed the spare tire in the front seat, put mayo on the steering wheel and hid an open can of sardines somewhere in the auto – this was not found until much later when in the full stages of ripeness. Plus they locked the only key we had inside the car.

Another key was obtained after what seemed like an hour, the car was straightened up enough to make it drivable and then we headed down the long steps of the church through a shower of rice and we were off. It was common practice back then for a string of cars to follow with blaring horns and this occasion was no different. Enough became enough pretty soon and we determined to lose them.

We then went up to my old paper route – the Country Club Hills – and as the name infers, it had many hills and some confusing roads but I knew them like the back of my hand. Entering the area, I pretty much put the pedal to the metal. The old car left a trail of oil smoke and I was easy to keep up with for a while, but when the contrails started crossing each other we got away from the raucous group.

Our car was hidden behind our wedding consultant’s house in an area enclosed by a privacy fence. Still not totally convinced we had gotten away clean, and not wanting to be trapped back there, we hurriedly tossed our clothes into the little VW and sped away. We stopped and called Mrs. C’s folks to let them know our general direction of travel and headed toward Florida – on an adventure with no particular destination in mind – this also would be considered odd in today’s world. We were completely out of town before our heartbeats returned to normal.

It was starting to get late in the day when we stopped for the evening. Our first place of residing together as a married couple was Motel Jesup, in the somewhat less than thriving metropolitan area of Jesup, Georgia. We were then shown to a very neat and comfortable room. We checked the room out and found that the bathroom light was inoperative – to the horror of Mrs. C. Instead of taking time to repair or replace whatever was wrong with the light, they just moved us to another room. This to the embarrassment of my lady since the motel personnel wore a very knowing smile.

The rooms of the establishment were situated in an L-shape behind a nice little restaurant out front near the road, quite possibly belonging to the same company as the motel. Neither of us had been very aware of our nutritional intake that day because of all the excitement and we decided to partake of a meal before retiring to our quarters.

We may have looked like any other young couple coming home from church except for Mrs. C’s corsage. However, when we walked into the eatery we both felt like we had large signs pinned on us somewhere that told the world we were newlyweds. When our meals arrived we bowed to give thanks for the food and a small shower of rice cascaded onto the table – it had caught in my lady’s hair from the pelting back at the church. The resulting laughter broke the self-imposed tension and we smilingly finished our meal.

TBC - ec