At the Marshall house, our only magazines were Reader’s Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, Field & Stream, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Boys’ Life.
And CU’s giant Norlin Library seemed like El Dorado compared to Center’s one-room thrift shop of a town library. What a thrill to prowl shelf after shelf, floor after floor, discovering one nugget after another. No more Hardy Boys and Zane Grey for me. When I stumbled onto Sinclair Lewis, I devoured all his books, especially Elmer Gantry: How could I ever walk into the Methodist church again without being disgusted by the hypocrisy of organized religion?
Then Thomas Wolfe. Couldn’t get enough. He spoke directly to me in You Can’t Go Home Again. Alone, through the night, Wolfe’s George Webber would walk the streets of Brooklyn, his mind in turmoil, seeking to make sense of the world. For me, it was Boulder’s streets—solitary walks from midnight to dawn. One night, propelled by Wolfe’s prose, I, too, pounded in anguish at a brick wall until my knuckles bled. It brought only pain, not relief.
George and I shared the torment of trying to figure out who we were, the despair of loneliness, and, at the same time, the joy in living. And though I railed on about America’s flaws, Wolfe articulated my own underlying faith in my country:
I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me . . . not only our own hope, but America’s everlasting, living dream.
As Mom and the kids slept, my mind floated free. The miles sped by. On days like this I could drive for hours without stopping, as I had done from Silverton to Boulder and later from Silverton to Salt Lake.
Now, Burma-Shave signs flew past: HARDLY A DRIVER / IS NOW ALIVE / WHO PASSED / ON HILLS / AT 75 / BURMA-SHAVE. Along the roadside, hills appeared, then trees and mountains. Inside the car, my mind served up a kaleidoscope of memories from CU.
It wasn’t books alone that sent me off on a different track at the university. Or the Daily. Or my classes. It was life itself.
Faith in my country had been shattered late in my freshman year when the Soviet Union shot down the American U-2 spy plane. What? America had been spying on other nations? Our country had been lying to us and the rest of the world? Eisenhower was more than a president or war hero. He was a favorite uncle, wise, experienced, a proven leader, the antithesis of a wheeler-dealer politician. Mom and Dad had voted for Ike in ’52 and ’56. I still had my prized “I Like Ike” button. If I couldn’t trust Ike, how could I trust any American politician?
A year later, we invaded Cuba. The Bay of Pigs. The CIA mucking around in another foreign land. More US skulduggery. More official lies.
And in the US itself, the ruthless backlash to the civil rights movement erupted across the country. At the start of my junior year, federal marshals had to escort James Meredith through angry mobs of whites so he could enroll at Ole Miss, the first black ever to do so. Night after night, nothing on the news but sit-ins, protest marches, boycotts; rioting mobs attacking blacks, burning cars; demonstrators beaten and dragged away. TV brought the brutality of discrimination into my sheltered life.
Considering I had grown up on a farm in the boondocks, maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the university totally changed my life. Center had a two-block business district and a single traffic signal. For entertainment we had a pool hall on Main Street and a drive-in movie three miles out of town. No radicals. No socialists. No protests.
We didn’t talk politics at dinner. Or debate issues of the day. Or sit around reading great literature. No child or spousal abuse in our home. No alcoholism. No drugs. Mom and Dad were respected and active in the community: the Methodist church, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and the Masons and Eastern Star. In the summer we camped out and fished for trout. We were the Anderson family in Father Knows Best—parents nurturing carbon copies of themselves. Kids growing up in a Norman Rockwell painting.
We lived on a farm, but we weren’t farmers. Dad had been busy building the Marshall Produce Company, begun by Grandpa Fred in the thirties, and he and Mom rented a farmhouse not far from his warehouses. Marshall Produce bought potatoes in bulk from farmers and shipped them to wholesalers that stocked grocery stores throughout the West.
Mom was a housewife raising four kids. Then a widow at forty-one. She didn’t have time to ponder whether America was a racist, oppressive society. She had kids to support. After Dad was killed, the business transferred to his partner. Mom had to start from scratch and find a job—and she did, as a secretary at a local Department of Agriculture office.
Annie and I felt much the same way, but she was a gentle soul, not given to radical outbursts. Now, in the silence of a lonely day, speeding across Nevada toward the hinterlands of Utah, I realized I’d shot myself in the foot with my lust and politics.
No doubt, Annie had “come to her senses” in Europe. This image flashed through my mind: Annie and the Stud in his white Corvette, waving to the crowd, a “Just Married” banner and strings of tin cans trailing behind.
I finally faced the truth—Annie loved Lieutenant Sigg. All that was left for me was memories.
Saturday, 25 July 1964, en route to Center. Near Grand Junction, Colorado, the radio came back to life: the Top 20. We sang along, even Mom. “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Everybody Loves Somebody,” “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” and on and on for miles.
We hit farmland and talked crops and reprised my high school trips to Grand Junction—our state semifinal football game in nearby Palisade my senior year, the DeMolay state conventions, the all-state band concerts I’d played in.
Late that afternoon, when I pulled into our gravel driveway, I swung too fast and wide, nearly skidding into the irrigation ditch, and crunched to a stop inches from the backyard gate. I leaped out and sprinted to the mailbox. It was packed so tight I had to pry everything out.
In the kitchen, I went through the mail like a pirate digging up his loot. Voilà! News from long-lost Annie—two letters and a postcard. I skimmed the card:
East Berlin, July 15, 1964—Contrary to popular belief, Miss Ann Garretson is still alive and kicking despite the fact she has not been heard from for over two weeks. Our Berlin correspondent spoke with her briefly this morning in front of the Pergamon Museum and she promised that one TM would have a letter within 3 days. This was all she was able to say as she was totally exhausted.
No signature. Not even her bold, sweeping initial A. Communist East Berlin? Wow! But that was ten days ago. Was she alone? Or with the Stud? No hint. At least she was the old Colorado Daily Annie, budding journalist with a fake news story. A good sign.
Upstairs in my room, I slit the letters open, the skinny one first—a single sheet with one hand-scrawled paragraph. Landshut, July 22. Only three days ago.
Ter, am on my way to Scandinavia for a week or so, then back here for a day or two and on to London. I have encountered nothing that can change my feelings for you, and I miss you more and more. I sent a letter to you in Los Gatos but doubt if you received it before you departed. It wasn’t a very good letter because it didn’t tell you how much I love you. I’ll write again when I arrive.
I read it. And read it twice more. “I have encountered nothing that can change my feelings for you . . . It didn’t tell you how much I love you.” Yes!
The other letter, special delivery, had been sent to Los Gatos and forwarded to Center. Uh-oh, the one she warned me about. I slit the envelope open as delicately as if it were a bomb and a careless motion would trip a trigger and blow my life to pieces.
Two pages, dated July 20, Landshut. I flipped first to the end: “I love you, A.” Yes! I skimmed through. “Jack has not, by the way, proposed.” Thank God!
I read her letter line by line. She didn’t list them, but it was clear that six letters from me had been waiting for her in Landshut. She wrote:
You speak of Silverton and I am transported there with you, doing all the grea
t things you describe.
You must know I share wholeheartedly with you the desire to be together this year, and yet something catches inside me with the thought of marriage right away. Jack and I have had some very good times together, but we have also discovered more incompatibilities than you and I ever had because of a mutual stubbornness. Even so, Ter, I still cannot give you a definite answer right now.
I read the last line again and teared up. My mind went blank. When I returned to life after who knows how long, I refolded her letters, put them in their envelopes, and buried them under my T-shirts in the dresser. No cursing. No crying. No “woe is me, my life is over.”
I clumped downstairs. I didn’t have time for girls. I had work to do—check the chickens, feed the dog, carry in suitcases, put things away, help rustle up some dinner.
My attempt to blot out Annie’s crushing rejection failed. By 8:30, everyone had collapsed. Pam and Randy hadn’t even turned on the TV, but merely trundled off to bed. By 8:50, I was at my typewriter. Calm. Rational. Intent on convincing Annie that she was wrong, that, as King had put it at the March on Washington, “Now is the time.”
I didn’t need to tell her I loved her. I’d written it over and over. She had too. “I love you,” her latest letter declared. She wanted us “to be together this year.” She loved Silverton as I did, recognizing that it represented a lifestyle that she, too, wanted. How could she possibly conclude “I still cannot give you a definite answer right now”?
A nightmare tormenting me for weeks caromed through my mind: Annie and the Stud leap from his Corvette and sprint into an opulent sultan’s tent, flinging off their clothes as they run. Inside, she’s naked. He’s naked too—save for his sword, dangling from his red West Point waist sash. They sink into a palatial bed: silk sheets, rose petals, sultry music, flickering candlelight, incense wafting. Instantly, arms and legs entwined, they’re one, more exultant than Rachael and I were in our wildest moments. Argh! I couldn’t stand the thought.
I reread Annie’s letters and card, scouring between the lines. The card had an odd smudge in the bottom corner, nearly obscured by her handwritten “mit luftpost”: a green squiggle, so small I needed to read it with a magnifying glass—the one I bought when I was working on my Boy Scout Insect Study merit badge. Ha, not a doodle at all, but a declaration: “God, I miss you!”
Annie never said “God”! When talking about religion, yes, but never as an expletive. So what was this?
Dammit, don’t lie to me, Annie! Do you want to be together or not?
I jumped up. Tiptoed downstairs. Plugged in the coffee pot. Devoured a bowl of Cheerios while the coffee brewed. And crept back upstairs to the typewriter.
Obviously Annie didn’t fully realize how deeply intertwined our lives had become, how much I loved her, or how pressed we were for time. She needed to say yes. Posthaste, not in some nebulous future.
Peace Corps training would begin in Berkeley on August 14—two days after she would arrive back in the states. I’d leave for Caracas November 3. It boiled down to this:
I don’t think I could go on for two years with the loneliness and frustration I’ve felt these fifty days. My life now is thoughts of you, of plans for this next year, of the many things we must do together. It’s inconceivable that I leave for two years without your going with me. But if I do go to the training, I’ll go with full determination to succeed and be sent to Venezuela; I can’t do it any other way.
We needed to talk. But how? Last week she was in Berlin, then Landshut, and now, on her way to Scandinavia. Where in Scandinavia? I’d never track her down. “Call me collect. I’ll be at home,” I wrote. Waiting by the phone. I didn’t tell her that.
I reread my letter. It was all doom and gloom. I needed to lighten it up and make her laugh. So I told her about Reno, about playing the slot machines, drinking Black Russians with Mom, trying to act like a cultured theatergoer but wincing at one raunchy joke after another, and going bug-eyed when the topless dancer flounced up to our table and squiggled in so close her nipples grazed my cheek. I’d been so flustered that I jerked back like I’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. I confessed that much to Annie. I didn’t tell her I’d nearly creamed my jeans.
After four single-spaced pages, my eyes burned. I ended my letter with a request I figured would clinch the deal: “If you do decide to marry me, would you mind being the best man? You are my closest friend.”
Ann
Sunday, July 26, 1964, Copenhagen. When I spilled out of the train station into the Copenhagen sunshine, the fragrance of bakery-fresh bread reeled me into a small café. Famished after my overnight ride, I ordered whole wheat, two slices, still warm, and slathered them with soft butter. The nutty taste sparked indelible memories of Mom timing her bread baking to coincide with our arrival home from school.
Two couples, one young, one old, at different tables, were rat-a-tatting in Danish. The older man acted out an animated story, interrupted frequently by the woman’s wisecracks, which sent them into gales of laughter. I imagined Terry rolling out yet another goofy tale in fifty years—and me forever young in his presence. A sense of humor, yeah, that was a biggie. For life, and for love.
The younger couple were going at it as if he were Jack the Ripper, and she, judge, jury, and executioner. He turned his hands upward, eyes begging, and pleaded a soft defense. His murmur provoked vituperation. Could that be me, with either Terry or Jack? No. Neither had ever done anything to anger me so. I felt for the guy. And the girl. But I had my own challenges to confront. In love with two guys? Did I love them equally?
How do you measure love? In drops, like honey? In bunches, like flowers? Either way, Terry nearly won me over when he wrote that he wanted me “as a lover, as well as a friend, to share the millions of small things, the great emotions, and frustrations, and also the beautiful physical love that comes from your sensitivity, your awareness.” But Jack prompted the same response when he said, “My love for you has exceeded what I felt was safe. I’m finding no limit to the pool.” I’d have to forgo a lifetime with one guy or the other. How could I bear it?
Maybe love had different grades, depending on its “impurities.” Did true love even have impurities? Or was true love the fodder of romance novels? Dad had told me—after he and Mom suggested I was too critical of former boyfriend Geoff—“You can’t always change them, but oftentimes some accommodation is in order.”
What accommodations would I have to make with Terry? Or Jack? A few came to mind, like restraining impetuous outbursts—from both men. I cringed as I thought about Terry’s “I hate America” letter—and equally about Jack’s fury at having to work “with swine” when the major tried to dance with me. Hotheads, the two of them!
And what about my own flaws? Either one would have to deal with my Pollyanna tendencies, which I constantly struggled to rein in.
Scarier yet, how would I survive as a conscientious objector’s wife who might have to visit her spouse in jail—or as an army officer’s wife who had to put a lid on her beliefs about peace over war?
Tearing myself from the bakery, I strolled Copenhagen’s freshly swept streets.
But the pesky questions persisted. Could we judge the quality of love by its origins, like we do with “clover honey”? Would love be more lasting if a guy came from a cohesive family? Terry’s parents were happily married until his dad was killed. After months in the hospital, Terry’s mom recovered from compound broken legs and ribs, got a job for the first time in twenty years, and was raising Terry’s three younger siblings in junior and senior high school. Single-handedly. How resilient. How powerful. I liked her and his siblings. They all had a quick wit that bound them together.
I hadn’t met Jack’s parents, but he had confided in them when he hatched the scheme for Gretchen’s trip to America. Before she decided to go to Denver, they were willing to take her in without judgment. How generous. Presumably, both Terry and Jack had learned the give-and-take of love from parents who had
married for life. That was essential.
Pausing by the Nyhavn Canal, I latched on to this truth: Marriage was about more than love. My husband had to see me as an equal. Both Jack and Terry stood tall on that score. Jack expected me to get my degree. How gratifying that he asked to read my college term papers—so he could learn from me. During our travels, we had fantasized about pursuing advanced degrees and even serving in the Foreign Service—together.
And Terry had always treated me as an equal at the Daily. Sure, he edited my work mercilessly. But he demanded the same critical eye from me toward his work. In those last fraught weeks before I left Boulder, we had shared dreams of teaching, joining the Peace Corps, and maybe someday owning a small-town newspaper—all of it together. And on life’s challenges, he had always sought my advice, probably more than he now wished.
I checked my map and headed for my chosen dollar-a-day hostel. Ah, yes, frugality. That was another gauge. If anything, both Terry and Jack were more tightfisted than I was. Terry reached the nadir when he lived in the dismal furnace room of that apartment house in Boulder. As for Jack, I still snickered, recalling a rambling audio letter when he finally said, “Well, I guess you can tell I’ve run out of news, but I hate to waste the rest of this tape.”
After four years, I really did know Terry. We got along perfectly. I loved his sense of humor, and I loved being with him. And Jack? Even before we fell in love, he and I explored our values—and our flaws—through our letters and found our values to be in sync. Flaws? How could you objectively discuss your own flaws with the person you hoped would love you forever? Really, I had to spend the summer with him. And guess what. Big picture, we were compatible!
In a clatter of high heels, two women strode past, trailing cigarette smoke that assaulted my eyes and nose. Ah, yes, another important detail. Luckily, neither guy smoked.
A Rendezvous to Remember: A Memoir of Joy and Heartache at the Dawn of the Sixties Page 28