Chap. 18: The Real Depth of Our Love

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Still Getting Used To Each Other
We Discover the Real Depth of Our Love


         In November of 1969 we moved into an old, but sound and well-maintained apartment building bordering on a local black community. Being good Christians, race meant nothing to us, so living there didn't bother us. And we enjoyed the spaciousness, attention to detail and decor of the older buildings. Solid wood paneling halfway up the walls in the hallways. Mar-ble staircases with solid wood decorative handrails. Marble halfway up our own bathroom walls. Little details like that.
         Then there were the spacious rooms, all with 9-foot ceilings. Spacious? Kitchen 10 X 20 feet, with a walk-in pantry. Living room 16 X 19 feet, and the bedroom was even 12 X 18 feet. Finally, there was the bay window and built-in window seat in the living room. The only negative thing about the place was that the previous tenants must have been colorblind: the kitchen had a black ceiling, purple walls and a red floor. All that old-fashioned luxury on our budget. An interesting side note: This was to be only the second apartment we occupied dur-ing our life together that was not #2. This one was #11.

         About this time, Linda decided that, now that she had the time, she wanted to go back to school and finish her education. I thought it was a great idea, and I let her know it. That settled it. She signed up for the A.C.T. test that would take place next spring and we began in earnest getting her prepared for that big day.

         On the professional front, I had had my suspicions for some time, and early in 1970 they were confirmed. Kroger did not promote from Computer Operations to Programming. So, in March of that year, I moved to Shillito's, division of Federated Department Stores, again as an operator, but this time with up-front knowledge that my boss knew programming was my ultimate goal, and that such a move was possible with them. He even put it in my per-sonnel record, in case anything should happen to him.
         And, I had also been fortunate enough to arrange to work steady second shift. (Unlike Kroger, our working schedule didn't rotate). So now, I was in a position where I could get back to school when we had the money.
         The working conditions were ideal. Two-man shift, no one breathing down our necks as long as we got the work out. Second shift bothered me a little, because I hated to miss all my favorite TV shows, and occasionally, in the early afternoons, I'd unintentionally "get underfoot" when Linda was trying to clean house. But, at least with second shift my sleeping hours weren't too far from the usual, and that plus the quiet, peaceful atmosphere and two-man shift, far out-weighed the disadvantages. And the shift differential on the paychecks helped, too. This was no job; it was as enjoyable as a hobby.

         There were times, though, when living in that neighborhood was a minor irritation. As stated earlier, we didn't mind, race meant nothing. But her mother was so scared of the area that not once while we were there did her parents come to visit us, and that hurt Linda. She knew they couldn't help the way they felt. But it still hurt. Sometimes deeply.
         So I guess it's just as well that all that old-fashioned luxury we knew in that beautiful old apartment was short-lived. Six months after we moved in, the government purchased the building to renovate it for use as a low-income housing project. We had to be out by August 15th. Since our ideal was to live in Anderson Township anyway, we resolved to stick to that area and get it into our budget (now $7200/yr.) one way or the other. So, in June, 1970, we were preparing to move again.

         One Saturday in July, the time for that ACT test Linda had signed up for had arrived. I drove her to the test site, on the west side of town.
         “Good luck, sweetheart!” I said enthusiastically. I kissed her.
         “Thanks, honey!” she said, grinning. “I sure hope I do well enough to get into col-lege!” She returned the kiss.
         “Now you sound like every high school kid has for years,” I said, chuckling as she got out of the car.
         “Yeah, I suppose I do, don’t I?” she laughed. “Thanks for being there for me on this, Jim! I love you! I’ll call you when I’m done.”
“Okay, honey.” She closed the car door and went into the building.

         About two hours later I got a call at home. Linda had had a seizure in the middle of the test. As quickly as I possibly could, I drove to the site. As soon as I walked into the room where she’d been recovering she burst into tears. As always, with me there she knew she didn’t have to hide anything anymore.
         “Oh, Jim!” she openly wailed. It was obvious her speech was still fairly slurred.
         I sat next to the examining table on which she was laying and took her hand, stroking her head. “I know, honey. Now it’s not just the [driver's] license, is it?”
         “No, it’s not!” she blurted. “How can I get into college without that test? I CAN’T!” she sobbed, still crying heavily.
         “There’s always next year, sweetheart,” I said calmly and with love.
         “No, the same thing will happen.”
         “Honey, don’t make any snap judgements now. We may have better control of your seizures by then. We don’t know it will be like this.”
         “OK, Jim, maybe you’re right,” she said, calming down now. But I wasn’t really sure she believed me.
         “Besides,” I added gently, smiling at her lovingly and squeezing her hand, I fell in love with you just as you are. The way you are right here, right now. And that won’t change whether you go to college or NOT!” I said emphatically. I wanted to leave no room for doubt in that statement.
         “Thanks, sweetheart,” she said warmly, drying her eyes. “I love you, Jim. Let’s go home.” (Linda never tried the test again. JAW 9/5/00)

         Later that evening, as we sat in the living room, she confided to me that no matter how hard she had tried, she could not help but get worried after most of the seizures that she had around me, that somehow her seizures were still going to drive me away from her. That even after 6 years of marriage and every statement I had made to the contrary, this was still a major concern. Considering how she had said long ago that for years she never thought she’d find someone who cared enough to look beyond the epilepsy, I suppose that the fear of losing that special someone after a seizure, if she was lucky enough to find them to begin with, had be-come somewhat deeply ingrained within her.
         Since that time I had been watching for, and very much aching for a way to prove to her once and for all that the seizures were not about to drive me away. To leave no doubt in her mind that I had meant every word I had told her the night of her Junior Class Play, now over seven years ago: “Lin, if you’ve NEVER believed me before, PLEASE believe me NOW. It makes absolutely no difference in the way I feel about you. I still love you.”
         One evening shortly thereafter, as I was in the living room reading the paper, I heard that now all too familiar yell begin as a seizure struck. I wasn’t sure which room she was in, so I dropped the paper and ran for the hallway, intent on looking in each room as I passed un-til I spotted her. It didn’t take long.
         As I entered the hallway, she lay before me, on her back in what had long ago become her “standard position”: legs going up and down while her arms went in and out from her sides.
         I was standing at her feet, watching and waiting as always, to assist her when she be-gan to come to. But this time, as I stood there watching her, the motions of her body were giving me brief, but enticing peaks beneath her skirt. Repeatedly. Just a hint of her white thighs and what lay between them beneath those panties. And, with the depth of our love, I was getting ideas. While I was trying to decide if I would be “taking advantage of her” or not, I suddenly realized that what I saw before me, there on that hallway floor, was my chance to prove to her once and for all that the seizures, no matter how many she had ever had, or would ever have, would never drive me away.
         As soon as she stopped moving about, my race against the clock began. I knelt down next to her and gently, lovingly began undressing her. Soon, still “sleeping it off” in “Phase II”, she lay naked before me.
         Removing my own clothing as quickly as possible, I began slowly, gently making love to her. Right there on the hallway carpet. I took my time. I wanted her to be awake before I finished.
         A few minutes later, she began stirring, and then opened her eyes. She looked around, and, shortly, noticed not only that we were naked, but what I was doing, and really let go emotionally. She let go physically, too, as far as her body was willing to let her at that point. The grin on her face had only been that big once before: the day of my Senior Prom when I’d asked her to marry me. And the look in her eyes was that “utterly boundless and unending love” that she had felt so deeply the night of The Play. She ignored the monstrous headache, if indeed the euphoria she felt at that moment let her feel it at all, and with the medication not a problem this time (since the seizure had already overridden it), made a clumsy effort to wrap her legs around mine. Knowing her intent and seeing the frustration on her face from not being able to do it (Remember? She’s a klutz after one of these things), I reached back, pulled her legs up and positioned them for her. Her grin returned. She tried her best to respond to me physically, but her lack of detailed muscle control made it a difficult task. I saw the disap-pointment in her eyes.
         “Honey,” I said warmly, “don’t worry about it. I know you want to do it, and I know how hard you’re trying. Those things alone show me the love and closeness you’re feeling right now. Just relax and enjoy it, darling. Let me spoil my wife a little.” I smiled warmly, and in a moment her wide grin returned as she nodded agreement. A few short minutes later we finished together, and just lay there snuggled together on that hall carpet and enjoying the closeness of the moment.
         Later, after she’d gotten her speech back, we were sitting in the living room. NOW she felt the headache. She had taken those three aspirin before we sat down. Her head was on my shoulder.
         “Honey?”
         “Yes, Lin?”
         “I want to thank you for making love to me like that.”
         I knew where she was coming from, but I saw a chance to make a point and keep her from getting too down. “Honey,” I chuckled, you never have to thank me for making love, darling. You know that.”
         “Yeah, I know,” she laughed. “But this time was different. I told you a long time ago that I was still afraid the seizures were going to scare you away, and now you find a way to make sure I know that will never happen. I love you, Jim!”
         I embraced her. Tightly. Hearing that much emotion in her voice even got to me. “I love you, too, sweetheart. And hopefully, if I’ve done my job right, you know that now more than ever.” I kissed her. Hard, and passionately. Her lips parted.
         “Yes, Jim, I know that now. And yes, more than ever. I’ll never worry about the sei-zures driving you away anymore.”
         “Sweetheart, that’s what I’ve wanted ever since you told me it still worried you was to take that burden from your shoulders. If they do anything, they make me feel closer to you.”
         “CLOSER to me??” she asked, totally surprised now that the fear was gone. “How? I… mean… ?”
         “Yes, Lin, closer to you. Because I get a very warm feeling from simply knowing that you need me. I like being needed. It gives me a purpose, just as you said my love gives you a purpose. You know, back when you found out I wasn’t going anywhere. That I intended to stay and be a part of your life.” As I said that, I knew she’d remember the night of The Play. That’s what I wanted. I wanted her to remember that night and realize that my love now was just as strong, if not stronger, than it was that wonderful night.
         “Jim, not counting the afternoon of your Prom when you proposed to me, or our Wed-ding Day, that night was the most wonderful night of my life. Because you gave me something that night I thought I’d never see in my life. You gave me your love, and your heart,” she said as the tears started to build.
         Those tears were becoming contagious. Looking in her eyes, and feeling all the emotion she’d just had in her voice as she answered, I found myself fighting them, too: “Thank you, Squeek. But never forget, darling, that on that Prom afternoon when I asked you to marry me, by saying ‘yes’ you gave me the very same thing: your love, and your heart. I owe you the same thanks, sweetheart!”
         We held each other tightly, and went ahead and gave ourselves the luxury of crying those tears of joy, and of love. I was deeply warmed by the fact that my sudden inspiration had done what I’d hoped it would do – rid her of the fear that the seizures would still drive me away – but I was feeling even more warmed, and content, and at peace inside because of the way the Lord had just used that same wonderful event between us to deepen our relationship even more and bring us even closer. To each other, and to Him.

         By the end of July, we'd found it. A nice little one-bedroom apartment on a main street (6580 Salem Rd.), and only $150 a month. For that side of town, that's cheap. So we grabbed it. Only one problem was created by this move. Bus service passed right in front of the place, but didn't run late enough to accommodate second shift (remember Linda having to catch that 10:20 from town after meeting Ron, and my having to take a taxi cab home after working 2nd shift at the book company?). So I had to drive to work. And that's a lot of gas! But worth it. We were finally living where we wanted to live, and "forced" to afford it.
         Next, we went through the place trying to decide the proverbial question: "Where does this go?" We even obtained permission from the landlord to install a small section of wall shelving in the living room, getting the stereo safely placed where it was not likely to be dam-aged.
         Within about a week, everything was unpacked and the place organized the way we wanted it.

Summer passed. The Chevy was still as big a pain as ever in wet weather. One night as I left work at midnight, it was already raining. "Swell. I hope it starts," I thought, both dis-gusted (past performance) and apprehensive (how do I get home without it?). It started (whew!).
At one point on the way home, the main artery I was using was equipped with a through-traffic lane on the right, so that flow was uninterrupted as traffic merged onto the Parkway from two side streets on the left. That through lane roadbed was tapered, containing a sewer drain at the lowest point. Ordinarily, no problem. Tonight, however, the drain was backing up. But it didn't look that bad, yet. "Another couple hours of this and we'll have a lake here, I thought as I approached the spot. SPLASH!
"Wow! It didn't look that deep!" I exclaimed aloud as sheets of water were sprayed to either side of the car. I had been about half a car length ahead of a VW bug in the adjoining lane, when I inundated everything in sight. "Bet that poor guy couldn't even see!" I thought, worried for a moment. "But I didn't hear any crashes, so he must've made it o.k. And my en-gine is still running, too!" I considered myself rather lucky on that point.
Some luck. With each succeeding block I drove, the engine response was rougher than the block before. "I can see what's coming, now I have to head it off." I shifted into neutral at red lights and gently revved the engine a little. As the lights changed, I dropped it gently into low as the idle speed tapered off. That combination did the trick. For about ten minutes.
As I turned from that artery to a side street, I knew I was in trouble. The side street was only two blocks long, running dead into another major local artery. I made only half that distance, coming to rest beneath a railroad overpass, in the curb lane. Immediate restart fail-ing, it was 15 minutes before it turned over once again, and I was able to arrive home. Safe, dry, but late.

Well into fall, Linda and I decided to take one more shot at trying to narrow down something in her head the doctors could use to pinpoint a better treatment plan for her sei-zures. She made a half dozen or so visits to a neurologist, Dr. James L. Armitage. Unfortu-nately, he wasn’t able to locate anything of a definite or consistent nature that would provide a valid reason for the seizures. But the simple fact that I’d supported her in the effort with no reservations, and had shown her in no uncertain terms that the strength and depth of my love did not change as a result of that outcome helped her more readily accept it, especially with the disappointment she’d been feeling.

As luck would have it, that crazy car of ours had to have the "last laugh" of the year.
It was Christmas Eve, and we still had no tree. (This was the first year we decided we could afford one). So we climbed in the car and headed up Beechmont Avenue. Within min-utes, we spotted the first place to check that still looked like they had a decent selection. But I was just a little skeptical...
"Hey, Jim, that looks like a pretty good selection to choose from over there!"
"Yeah, it does. But you gotta be careful of those ‘fly-by-night’ outfits. If you look closely, you'll notice that their field of operations is the old go-kart track."
"Right. But it's our own fault for waiting till the last minute, too. Right?"
"Right," I admitted, pulling into the lot. I parked parallel to the street, about ten feet from the curb.
No sooner had we gotten out of the car, then these two "salesmen" approached, a few feet away.
“There's something about these guys that's familiar," I told Linda as they got closer. Once they'd gotten close enough, I knew what it was and so did they.
Hey, Mark! Well I'll be damn! And Scotty! What the hell are you two doing here?"
"Selling Christmas trees. What's it look like?" Mark responded, grinning.
"Lin, this is Mark Timmons, and Charles Scott. My wife Linda. These two clowns were in my class at Anderson."
"Oh, that's wild!", she said, surprised.
Even after they really found out who she was (remember “Roach”?), they didn’t change their attitude. I thought, ‘I guess even Mark was able to grow up. I wasn’t sure that was possible, back then. Not for the “Class Clown”. Gotta give him credit.”
Scotty, on the other hand, I kind of expected him to handle it. He’d always been pretty level-headed. Class vice-president and all that. Well liked and respected. And he didn’t let me down.
The next two hours were happily spent in a totally unusual matchup of reminiscing and tree searching. (The tree was chosen in less than half an hour – the rest was reminiscing, as you might have guessed.)
When they decided, at 10:00 P.M., to “close up shop”, we all walked back to our car. After the good-byes, and usual promises to keep in touch, and to make our 5-year reunion next year, they headed for Mark’s car. Since we’d loaded the tree in the trunk when we picked it out, all we had to do was get in and drive away. So, I started the engine, put it in gear, and let out the clutch. Nothing. No, I wasn’t in neutral. But I was without a clutch.
I hailed Mark and Scotty before they could leave. True friends. We pushed the thing into the old go-kart maintenance shed and Mark got underneath. A few minutes later, he had me try shifting and taking the clutch in and out. No luck. He came out from beneath the car. I thought aloud, to Linda, as I climbed from the driver’s seat, “Somebody up There likes me. This could have happened on Columbia Parkway. At midnight. Let alone at 45 miles an hour.”
“I can’t argue that,” she smiled.
“Hey, Mark.”
“You need a lift home, right?”
“You read my mind.” We all laughed.
“No sweat. You can have the car picked up Saturday.”
“Thanks, man.”
Minutes later, the tree was in the back of Mark’s station wagon, and we headed out. They dropped us off at our doorstep at 12:30 a.m. Christmas Day.
Saturday, December 26, the car was towed to the shop and a new clutch installed. "This was the first stick shift we owned, and it's going to be the last," I muttered as I drove home that afternoon. My mind flew back over the problems we'd had with that car. "Doesn't like wet weather. Diesels. Now the clutch. Not to mention the subtle problems. Like not being able to "be affectionate" with Linda when I need two hands to drive. And I'm just not sure the skimpy savings on gas mileage is worth all that! And $63.00 to boot! We are gonna start shopping around. Starting this early, maybe we can find a good deal before something else goes wrong." With that, I pulled into the driveway.
Five days later, 1970 was history.

1971, for us, was a typical year in most ways, including its share of seizures, but it did bring some laughs and an unexpected surprise or two along the way.
Sometime that winter, my nose got a wake-up call that was unmistakable. I’d just arrived at work, about 3:45 P.M. Taking my coat off, I walked past the automatic doors to the computer room, and on into the unit record area, to hang up my coat.
When I got to the coat rack, I found this horrible smell in the air. I noticed that when I walked away from the coat rack, though, in either direction, the odor quickly dissipated. I looked up toward the top shelf of the rack. All I could see was my partner Don’s hat and what looked like his brown paper lunch bag. I went into the room.
“Hey, Don, do you notice a smell over by the coat rack?” He laughed.
“That’s my lunch,” he said, smiling.
“HUH?” I asked surprised. What the hell have you got in there? It’s not a dead fish. It’s not the right odor for that,” I laughed.
“It’s a limburger cheese and onion sandwich,” he laughed again.
NOW I knew why it was a familiar odor. “I knew I’d smelled that before,” I laughed. “My dad loves that stuff. And you two can keep it!”
We laughed together then went to work.

Sometime that spring, one of the two day shift operators, John Schwartz, didn’t show up for work. No phone call, nothing. And a couple days later, they told us he wasn’t coming back. When we asked if he said why he wasn’t coming back, they said, “It wasn’t his choice, it was ours. Mainly because we haven’t been able to reach him.” We learned about a week later that the law was after him, but no one knew why.
It didn’t take long after that for the unique sense of humor we operators had to lead to a fun-loving twist on this event. Minor mistakes were one thing. But a major foul-up stuck the guilty party with a distinctive, unmistakable title that they would retain until someone else made the next big goof. You guessed it: Schwartz.
For example, at that time, most customers’ payments to their accounts were recorded on the old 80-column keypunch cards. Lots of work went into manipulating those before they were fed into the system. Each day’s payments had to be sorted by account number. That meant running up to 40,000 or so of those keypunch cards through mechanical sorters, sorting them on one position of the account number at a time until they’d been sorted on all 10 digits of the number, from lowest to highest. That’s the same as passing a total of 400,000 cards through the sorters. It could take hours, even when done properly. So if you missed a digit in the sorting, or, worse yet, dropped a tray of partially sorted cards, it meant starting completely over. Needless to say, the poor schmuck who was at fault heard, “Nice going, Schwartz!” And he kept that name until someone else got their hands crossed or drew a mental blank that resulted in the next major mistake. Until that happened, our poor card-weary soul would hear things like, “Hi, Schwartz! ‘Bout time you got here!” when he’d arrive for work each day.

Needless to say, with only 3 years of marriage behind us, there were still those times we found ourselves finding out more about how the other thinks / feels / reacts to things in day-to-day life. “Getting used to each other”, our ancestors would call it. And Linda and I were no exception.
In the fall of that year, we were visiting her folks and sister one Saturday. I don’t re-member the circumstances now, but somewhere in the course of conversation, one of her par-ents said something that Linda and I interpreted in two entirely different and unrelated ways.
Whatever was said, I took as putting her down, or, more likely, trying to tell her what to do as if she didn’t have any say in the matter for herself. Like my parents had done with me. It lit my fuse.
“That’s not fair to Linda,” I said sharply. “I don’t like the way she’s being treated. C’mon, Linda, we’re leaving,” I said sharply, and, I’m afraid, a bit loudly. I got up from my chair in their family room and headed up the short flight of stairs to the kitchen and living room.
“I’m staying,” she said, just as firmly, as I walked.
I stopped, turned around and looked at them all, then, focusing my eyes on her, I said, “Then I guess you’ve made your choice.”
I’d gotten my coat from the closet and was headed for the door when dad caught up with me. I’d noticed long ago that that limp of his sure didn’t slow him down any. I don’t re-member what he said, but I went back down with him to the family room.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” mom began as dad and I sat down again. “We shouldn’t have said it quite like that.”
“I’m sorry too, mom. I shouldn’t have blown up like that, but I’m just so tired of see-ing her treated like that, at least the way I took what was said, that I’m not going to let any-thing like that ever happen to her again if I can help it.”
Then Linda knew why I’d reacted that way.
“I’m sorry, honey. I was so startled when you got upset that I didn’t hear what you were saying. I didn’t realize how strongly you felt about those things that the kids did in school. Or if I’d known that, I’d forgotten it. She took my hand, then leaned over and kissed me. “It’s nice to know you’re looking out for me, honey, and I love you for it. I just didn’t take what they said the same way you did. I knew what they meant, and it wasn’t that. That’s why I said I was staying. I just didn’t realize what you meant right away. Forgive me?”
There went those big, brown eyes again. “C’mere, sweetheart,” I said as I reached for her. We shared a tight hug and probing kiss. “I just don’t want to see you ever hurt like that again, darling.”
“I know, Jim, and it feels good to know you feel that way. I love you.”
“I love you too, Squeek.”
Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day with them as we’d planned.


This work is taken from “A Once In A Lifetime Love: An Autobiography of Two High School Sweethearts”, copyright 2000, as yet unpublished, by the same author.