Chap. 21: Rebuilding Brings Us Closer

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rebuilding Brings Us Even Closer
But
Satan's Even Stronger


Between snowstorms in early January, 1978, we cleaned out the old shop. By now our personal finances were a mess, but we'd managed to keep the rent paid and food on the table. Praise the Lord! And this time I was fortunate enough not to be out of work any 7 weeks!
Also in the early part of that month, I filled out that petition for membership in Harry K. Eversull Lodge, No. 754, Free and Accepted Masons of Ohio. It would be submitted by dad at their monthly business meeting on the second Wednesday.
On January 17th, I began the job I hold at this writing (April 21, 1985), as a Program-mer/Analyst at R.L. Polk & Co. Even now I find myself wishing this job had existed back in 1967, though my years of experience have been a great help.
The early period that year was a struggle, but a welcome one. It was a great feeling knowing where the next meal was coming from. All the strain and worry were gone. Yes, we had bills, all families do. But that we could handle.
The third week of January brought a visit from 3 members of Harry K. Eversull Lodge, as dad said it would. He had also told me that because he had signed and had been the one to submit my petition, he could not be on the investigating committee, which made sense to me. There were two Past Masters and a junior officer in the group. They explained that the title of “Past Master” meant that they had been the presiding officer, the Worshipful Master, of the lodge at some point in the past. The title was basically a show of respect for their having served the lodge in that capacity. We talked, all five of us (Linda of course was included as dad had said she would be) for about an hour or so. I felt very comfortable with them, and had a good idea of what the lodge was about and what it stood for by the time they left. Naturally, Linda had absolutely no problem with my joining. She was all for it as she’d seen how much pleasure her dad had gotten from it for years, and how much she herself had enjoyed Job’s Daughters and now the Eastern Star. And she made no bones about her feelings on my joining to the committee while they were here. They really were surprised at her enthusiasm for the organization; they didn’t often investigate a potential member whose spouse was already in the women’s side of the organization. Most often, it seems, if a woman has joined Eastern Star it’s AFTER her husband has become a Mason, and based on HIS affiliation rather than her father’s, they said.

On Wednesday, February 8th, the lodge membership voted on my petition. Dad called me about 10:30 that night and told me I was accepted. He said the Secretary, Bill Hartley, would be calling me to find a Wednesday in March when I could be available for to receive the first degree. Linda and I were both very happy to get that call, though she showed it more openly than I did. She’d wanted me to join since early in our marriage, but I was typically hesitant about something I knew nothing about. So now she was simply beside herself with joy that I was becoming part of the organization.

On Wednesday, March 15, 1978, I was initiated in the Entered Apprentice degree. Dad was right. I was a nervous wreck, yes, but I loved the sound, mood and setting of that ancient ritual work. Not to mention the old English language. I was concerned about passing the oral test, just as anyone would be, especially since I didn’t yet know what it entailed, but at the same time I was eager to get the remaining two degrees taken care of so that I, too could participate in what I was now seeing for the first time. That’s how much I enjoyed that first experience.
Dad worked with me on the preparation for the oral exam over the 3-4 weeks that fol-lowed, and once I got the hang of reading the coded questions and answers, I even found my-self enjoying the studying, especially doing it with the man I now considered my father. I took the exam on Wednesday, April 12th, and passed it with no problem.

Cathy stayed with us through that April. During that time, she kept basically her own hours, often coming in after midnight, and two or three times, not at all. This bothered Linda and I because we cared very much about what happened to her. And we identified with her problem concerning her parents, which was negotiated to a peaceful settlement, by me. Shortly thereafter, Cathy returned home.
During her time with us, though, Linda and I had to be particularly careful not to be so animated in our bedroom adventures as to attract Cathy's attention if she was home. At times that was quite difficult, but we managed to succeed. At least if Cathy ever suspected anything she never mentioned it to us.
In this regard only, it was nice to get our privacy back when she returned home. Other than that, having the company of such a friend was something we would quite often miss.
On Wednesday, April 26th I was passed to the second degree of Fellowcraft and immediately began studying for that exam, which I wanted to take as soon as possible, and that meant the next stated business meeting which would be on Wednesday, May 10th.

Unfortunately, also by that April, the communication problem between Linda and I had mushroomed to the point where "absence makes the heart grow fonder" became the "rule of the day". To get along for a few hours together, with a good amount of affection, we spent many more hours apart.
It began simply with my arriving home, changing clothes, and the two of us having dinner together, after which I would immediately depart for my parents' and an evening of pi-ano work.
We weren’t sure why this was happening to us, especially as close as we had been all these years, and still were in so many ways. Misinterpreting what the other person was say-ing? Could something be bugging one of us and we were taking it out on our spouse? We just didn’t know. (Only there was something else we didn’t know, either. Rookies as we were at this Spirit-filled thing, we had no idea how many inroads Satan could make at destroying a relationship; some of them so subtle we'd never think of them as coming from the enemy.)
Within a few weeks, Linda had begun spending a good number of those same evenings at a local "fast food" restaurant. There she got to know the night shift crew by name, and even helped by sorting out the meal checks for the waitresses each night as they prepared to close.
Sometime in May, the girl that lived upstairs from us asked if she could ride into town and back with me the next day, Saturday, to get to work since her car was in the ship. Since I was working anyway, I figured we’d both enjoy the company.
Linda Morgan was about 5’3”, a bit more slender than my Linda, with shoulder length brown hair. I had previously noticed, too, that her chest was a little flatter than my Linda’s.
When she knocked on the door that morning, Linda let her in as I was picking up my briefcase.
“Hi, Linda, hi, Jim,” she said, smiling.
“Hi, Linda,” we said together.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” she said.
I turned to my Linda. “See you later this afternoon, honey,” I said as I kissed her. "I love you."
“Right, honey, see you later,” she said, smiling. "I love you, too." She closed the door behind us and Linda Morgan and I walked to the car. I held the door for her.
“Thanks, Jim, I appreciate that. Guys don’t do that sort of thing anymore,” she said as I got in and closed my door.
I started the car. “You’re welcome, Linda. You’re right, they don’t do that anymore. But to me it’s just common courtesy.”
A few blocks down the road I had a sudden impulse hit me. “Linda, why don’t you slide over here, “ I said. “You don’t have to be such a stranger, you know.”
“Thanks, Jim. I think I’d like that,” she said as she moved to the center of the seat. I put my right arm over her shoulders, driving with my left. A short time later I let my right hand rest, gently, on her breast from over her shoulder. She didn’t react, so I began gently fondling her. At the next stoplight I said, “Linda?” She turned and looked at me. I leaned over and kissed her, and it went into a deep, probing search. She responded the same way, which slightly startled me, but I kept going. When the guy behind us hit his horn, we ended the kiss and I hit the gas, letting my right hand explore her chest and legs a little. Even when I ran my hand up the inside of her thigh she didn’t resist. By the time we reached town, I’d “explored all the usual territory”, with no resistance from her.
When I parked the car I made a point of getting out before she could get away. “Make sure you remember where we’re parked,” I said warmly as I lightly fondled her left breast before embracing her and sharing another probing kiss. As I held the kiss I ran my hands down her back, across her bottom then back up again to squeeze her. I ended the kiss and said, “See you in about 8 hours, Linda. I’m looking forward to it.” I briefly fondled her again.
“So am I,” she said warmly.

When I returned to the car after work, there was a note on the windshield. Linda Morgan had had second thoughts about what we were doing and decided to take the bus home. My trip home was a lonely one. We never had any intimate contact after that, though we did remain friends.
I told Linda about it all that night, asking her to forgive me.
“That’s alright, honey, she said. “To be honest with you, I’ve started doing a little looking around myself. Haven’t done anything like you just said you and Linda did, yet, but I’m looking. We may not know what’s behind this, but at least we’re honest with each other and we still have our friendship and our love. She leaned over and kissed me.
“Right,” I said. “Strange combination, isn’t it? And I’m surprised at how calmly we’re able to deal with it all.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Most couples would be fighting tooth and nail over this kind of ar-rangement. It’s nice to know we can still count on each other in the clutch, though,” she said warmly. “Especially since we really haven’t figured out yet what started all this or where it’s going. I’m a little nervous, but also curious about that one.”
“Me too, honey. I suppose we’ll find out sometime,” I said. “I’m just as curious.”
On that note we got down to the business of the book reading we’d planned for the evening.

By June, she would often be at that restaurant before I got home, intending to have her supper there, and she would not arrive home before 12:15 or 12:30, because they didn't close till midnight (2:00 on Friday and Saturday nights). About once a week, usually Friday night, she would run even later because they'd all stop at a local lounge after work for a drink or two.
Occasionally I'd eat supper there with her and she introduced me to most of the crew. Since we had some time ago begun to consider divorce, I had no problem spotting a special tone in her voice when she talked about one of the night shift cooks. Believe it or not, his name was Charlie Brown.
"Gee, Charlie's good looking, don't you think?"
"Well, I never went much for the guys, sweetheart. But I suppose I can see why you think so. I would think another woman's opinion would be better than mine. Now some of the waitresses you've introduced me to are pretty sharp to look at, I will say that."
"Yes they are, aren't they?" She always had taken a delight in pointing out to me girls she thought I'd find attractive; she'd done it for years. She said she did it to learn where my "preferences" were, and because she knew I enjoyed it. Now, at times, I would feel as though we were opening a new form of discussion on the subject: helping each other find a new part-ner they'd be happy with after we split.
The thing was, we were adult enough to know why it wasn't working out. Or at least we thought we knew why it wasn't working. And we could openly, lovingly discuss the impending divorce in a calm, pleasant atmosphere and still show how deeply we cared about each other. The deep love was still there; things just didn’t appear to be working out now, and we hadn’t yet been able to figure out why. We seemed resigned to it, and were looking more ahead than trying to figure it out.
At this point, Satan began to try working on me as well as Linda. Again. One of the waitresses (we'll call her Wanda), had begun to look quite appealing to me. As the second week of June slowly passed, our "new foursome" became the fun-loving object of comments by the others on the shift. And we kind of enjoyed it, though I did find myself a bit embarrassed at times.
One particular evening that week, I was around as the shift was ending. The end result of that and a couple other situations was that Linda left that night with one of the "regulars", and I offered Wanda a ride home.
Wanda only lived a few blocks away, and we reached her home in a few short min-utes.
Parking the car in back of her house, we began some romantic necking. It never got beyond that stage though, because Wanda could not get the thought out of her mind that she was hurting Linda through this, that there should still be a chance for Linda and I to stay together, though we had almost ruled that out. After a friendly farewell, I arrived home about 1:30 in the morning.
I had a little difficulty getting to sleep. "Wondering about Linda?" I thought, a little curious, and yet there was a touch of a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. "Geez. Maybe Wanda's right. But Linda seems pretty set on Charlie Brown by now. She might not go for it even if I wanted to." I prayed about the whole thing and finally drifted off to sleep.
Sometime later, I heard the sound of a car in our driveway below. I looked out the rear window of the bedroom, and saw Linda and her companion lifting her moped out of his trunk. As he drove off, she opened the garage door to put the bike away. I relax and scurry back to bed. A few short minutes later she entered the apartment.
"Hi, sweetheart", I called as she hung up her coat and headed for the bedroom.
"Hi, honey."
She kissed me. "For two people so likely to split, it's great we can do it on such a friendly, understanding note," I said, smiling at the idea. "I don't think many divorced couples are fortunate enough to do it this way. Let alone help each other find a new mate."
"Yeah." she smiled. "Wild, isn't it? By the way, how'd you and Wanda get along after Sonny and I left?"
"We didn't. I drove her home but she kept getting the idea that you and I should stay together, so nothing ever came of it. What about you and Sonny?"
"Same here, but different reasons. You've seen him enough to know he likes his liquor. Right?"
"Right."
"We stopped a the lounge 'cos he wanted a couple. By the time we reached his place, he was holding it well, but a little too slap-happy to suit me. And I didn't want to get into something I couldn't control. So when I refused to take my top off for him 4 times as he was playing the piano, he gave up and brought me back to the restaurant. I picked up my bike and came home."
"Swell," I chuckled. "Couple of live wires, aren't we? We may be stuck with each other yet."
"Yeah," she answered laughing.
We kissed. Warmly, but a little short in length.
"Good thing we're friends," she added, poking me in the ribs and laughing.
“You got that right, lady!"
Affectionately, we kissed goodnight and hit the sack. It was 2:30.
Not long after that night, Satan took his best shot at our relationship to that point. Both barrels.
We hadn't attended church for a long time now; over a year, really. The Spirit-filled minister we'd grown to love and depend on had moved to Greenville, a small town in central Ohio, and our new pastor was not interested in becoming Spirit-filled. The end result of this had been that we no longer felt "fed" by that church. In fact, we felt held back. So we'd stopped going, relying on each other and our relationships with the Lord to sustain us. Some-where in there, either we were being taught a lesson, or we just plain missed the boat. Matter of opinion I suppose.
Within a few days of that recent "fling", communication between us broke down completely. We almost reached the point of speaking to each other only when necessary. We each lived our own lives. Like roomies, not lovers. By the 21st, Linda was spending most of her days at the restaurant, too. Sometimes from noon on.
"That's over 12 hours," I thought one night as I lay in bed waiting for her to return.
"2:00. The lounge closes in half an hour. She went with them. She'll be here about 3:00."
"3:30." Now I was wondering. Even if we did split, I still cared enough not to want anything to happen to her. With that thought in mind, I prayed.
As soon as I finished, I decided to look for her. I dressed as fast as I could and headed for the restaurant. Carefully, slowly, and being as observant as possible, I pulled into the res-taurant parking lot.
"Don't want to look like I'm lingering in case a police car comes by," I thought as I crept along. "Better not come to a stop anywhere."
Her moped was parked in the last space by the building. "Okay. No accidents. She has to be with someone then. Amen!" That, at least, was a relief.
Next, I spotted a dark-colored hardtop parked toward the back of the lot, about halfway between the building and the back fence. Couldn’t tell the color; it was too dark to see that well. "Windows up, probably locked. A few of them must have doubled up for a joy ride." For a fleeting moment, I considered checking out the car. "Naw, my luck I'd be peering into it and a cop would stop me. It's not my car. And with my luck it'll have drugs or something in it and I'll be in trouble. Nope. Bike's here, so she's o.k. Better wait for her at home."
I circled around the building, hit the highway and headed home. I was a little nervous about her, but relieved to spot the bike. Since I had the truck, I considered taking it home for her, then decided against it. "She wouldn't know I'd been here, so she'd figure it was stolen. And that's all we'd need." Back to the apartment.
"Nothing to do but wait," I said, now a little anxious. "Hope I can make it through work tomorrow without much sleep."
I suddenly awoke as I heard her trying the lock and realized I'd dozed. I looked at the clock. "5:15! Wow!" I thought, now more curious than anything else. The adrenaline was flaring with that curiosity, and a genuine desire to be certain she was alright. I bounded out of bed to check it out and ran to the living room. She'd just locked the door and turned on the light. She took off her coat and dropped it into her chair with a "Who cares about that now?" kind of dreamy motion, reflected in the look on her face. An affectionate hug and kiss got the conversation started.
"Well! I'm sure relieved to see you here safe and sound, Lin." By now her wide grin was getting infectious. I slowly grinned as I continued: "But...wh... what took so long?"
Having that floodgate opened, she couldn't wait any longer. "I... made love tonight!" she said excitedly. I figured her slight hesitation was because she was worried about my reaction to the idea.
"Oh!" I found myself actually hoping she'd gotten turned on normally by it, so she'd know the joyous feeling it could bring. Even if I wasn't the one. "Um... anybody I know?" That infectious smile now had both of us grinning ear to ear about how she felt.
"Charlie Brown!"
"Well, Lin, if it couldn't be me that turned you on, I'm glad it was someone you cared about." I kissed her.
"Thanks, Jim."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Oh, yeah! It was just a little cramped, though."
"Where'd you do it?"
"In the front seat of his car."
"Wanna tell me about it?" I knew she'd burst if she couldn't. And she'd have to relax to get to sleep. We stood there, in the middle of the living room, arms around each other, as the story unfolded.
"He offered to give Dorothy a ride home. You remember Dorothy - the young one with the big, sad brown eyes?"
"Yeah."
"He asked me if I wanted to go along for the ride, so he'd have someone to talk to on the way back. I knew you wouldn't mind, and I loved the idea, so I agreed. I sat in the middle, next to him since Dorothy would be the first one to get out of the car. We ended up holding hands most of the trip to her house.
"Soon after we started back, he put his hand on my knee, so I laid my head on his shoulder. One thing led to another, and by the time we got back, his hand had ‘covered all the usual territory’, if you know what I mean." She smiled sheepishly.
"Yep. I gotcha." I smiled, my heart warmed by knowing how much she'd enjoyed it, my mind racing to visually interpret her description.
"Well, he parked the car in the back of the lot, and turned off the key. I started to get out and he said, ‘Do you have to leave right away?’ reaching for my hand as he asked. He pulled me back to the middle of the seat, put his hand behind my neck and guided my lips to his. Then he gently laid me down on the seat and....well, you know the rest." She was still beaming. "I do have to admit that it hurt a lot, but the pain was beautiful!"
"Did you two...do anything else?"
"Oh... yeah. And you can probably guess what it was, too. I found myself thinking, as he guided me there, 'anything you want, Chuck'."
"Un-huh. Did you enjoy that too?" I was curious because she'd always been shy about trying it with me all these years.
"I have to admit I did. Sorry about that, Jim."
"No problem. Hey. About what time was this, anyway?"
"Around 3:30 - 4:00 this morning."
"Brother!!" I thought to myself as everything fell into place. I didn't tell her how close I'd come to checking out that car. But I found myself thinking about how interesting it might have been to have walked over and found them making love, and how I kinda wish I had. Just a few minutes later, we were ready to fall asleep.
The next night, she joined them all at the lounge for a few drinks and some conversa-tion. An "affectionate" comment about the night before brought an immediate denial from Chuck. After all the rumors she'd heard and confirmed to the staff that evening, this denial really hurt. She made a firm, convincing statement to the entire group, and left.

(She spent no more time at the restaurant, for obvious reasons. And we were to learn, within a month, that the entire night crew, including the manager, had been transferred to other restaurants in the chain, or had quit, and a new group of unfamiliar names and faces now inhabited the place at night. We both concluded that the truth must have eventually come out).

(I found myself thinking, just today, about how different things might have ultimately been if she had gotten pregnant as a result of her one time with Charlie Brown. In a way I kind of wish she had, considering that we were never able to conceive a child of our own. The fact that the child would have biologically been hers would have been more than enough reason for me to raise it as my own. But then, that’s just one of the possibilities running through my head right now. JAW 11/23/2009).

Even with all we’d been through to that point, both of us kept that promise we‘d made back on Friday, June 6, 1966 after my graduation, that we would never lie to each other. These latest events had taken our relationship to its lowest point ever, yet that promise was never broken. Praise the Lord!

Even through all that, Linda was able to keep our personal problems independent of her participation in the Star, and so far, they hadn’t interfered with my receiving the degrees or taking the oral exams for the Lodge. On Wednesday, June 21st I received the third degree of Master Mason. What made the night really special for me is that dad had arranged to serve as the Worshipful Master for my degree. That meant that the man I now considered to be my fa-ther was given the opportunity to bestow on the only son HE would ever have the highest and most important of the three Blue Lodge degrees. That made the night the most special time he and I had ever spent together since we’d met just over 12 years earlier. With the Lodge taking summer break, I would have to wait until September to take the exam for the Master Mason’s degree. I started studying right away anyway, mainly because I enjoyed it, but also so that it would all look familiar to me when I went to refresh my memory in August to really get ready for that exam.

That little episode with Linda and Charlie Brown seemed to cement, for us, the idea that a split was inevitable. In the week that followed, we drew up a list of our property and decided who would retain what pieces. We separated our record collections. Linda began searching for a job to support herself. She had decided that, even living at home, she had to remain financially independent. Not that I could blame her.
And we continued to marvel at how openly we were able to deal with the situation, unlike the horror of most divorces. And with the great love we still felt for each other, we knew we would always be as close from now on as we had always been. So she knew I'd still be there if she ever needed me.
What we had no way of knowing, yet, was how closely the Lord, and the Spirit, had been, and were still, watching over us. But we were about to find out.Bigtime.


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.