Tip It!

by Maggie Griffin

  Of course, I was starting to really like him. But I didn’t know exactly how he felt about me, because he seemed to enjoy being with all of us. Well, one night we were waiting for Irene and Rae because we were all supposed to go see a movie, and the word came that they’d been hung up someplace. I suggested sitting and waiting for them, but it would have meant missing the film.

  “No, Mag,” Johnny said. “Why don’t just you and I go?”

  I was so surprised. “Gee,” I stammered out. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  But I said yes. And it wasn’t so hard to say, either. Johnny would later tell me, “Mag, I had been waiting for MONTHS for that to happen! I knew how you were with the girls, and I was afraid to call my hand too soon.” How sweet!

  That was when we started going out on dates by ourselves, and Johnny and I became a real couple. But I didn’t have to feel bad for Irene and Rae. As luck would have it, Johnny had a buddy named Jim who fell for Rae, and around the same time, my sister Anne introduced Irene to an aspiring fireman named Joe who fell for her! Pairing off with Johnny might have even sparked these connections, too, because these guys suddenly felt they could ask the other girls out. We all fell in love with our eventual husbands at the same time, I tell you. It was strange, amazing, and perfect.

  When war talk started building in 1940 because of what was going on in Europe and the Pacific, Johnny, who was twenty-four, did what a lot of young men did then: he enlisted. The feeling was, join up before you had to join, and you might be out in a year. Plus, you’d get your job back, with seniority. (By that time, Johnny was working for a shipping company.) We’d talked about getting married, and we decided to wait until he got out of the army.

  It was the beginning of December 1941 when Johnny got a furlough from the military, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Spokane, Washington, where Johnny was stationed at Felts Field, had seemed so far away, and now I was going to have him home for three weeks!

  It turned out to be only three days. It was a Sunday, and we were all getting ready for a big dinner that night at my sister Anne’s, when they announced on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. None of us even knew where Pearl Harbor was. But we knew what it meant. Johnny had to go back. I was devastated. We saw each other at my sister’s that night, anyway, but the mood was more anxious than celebratory.

  It wouldn’t be for another day or so that he could get back, anyway, because he had to get everything in order per the army’s wishes. Plus, transportation options were few. But boy, it was thrilling to see how quickly this country acted. Everything became for the soldiers, especially the trains. If you were going somewhere, too bad. You had to wait until a seat opened up that wasn’t needed for a man in uniform. Also, they started rationing food right away. You couldn’t just buy sugar or butter or meat whenever you wanted. The way this country came together was wonderful.

  But my Johnny was going to be gone now for a lot longer than we’d hoped. On top of his training to be an aerial photographer, he’d now get combat training, too. How did I know he wouldn’t be shipped overseas immediately?

  Johnny wrote me a letter when he returned to Spokane, saying he thought it was time for us to get married. As you might imagine, I was all for it. My dad wasn’t so hot about the idea, though. He was always helping his grown kids if they had money problems, or if a grandchild didn’t have one of his parents around because of divorce or death, so he imagined a future scenario in which he was once again helping out one of his children, in this case a widowed daughter with a young child—a sad scenario, sure, but a realistic one—and he just didn’t see the necessity in us rushing into marriage. I could see his point. Most girls waited out the war to get married, but Johnny and I didn’t want to wait.

  But there was also something very attractive about making a clean break from our families. If we were in Spokane, we could start our lives without anybody telling us what we were doing wrong. As much as I grew to love Johnny’s mother, for instance, she was a forceful presence who was used to raising her kids and telling them what to do, and she could sometimes be pretty hard to take. By ourselves, I’d be able to make a crummy meal for Johnny and nobody had to know but him.

  So I went straight to Spokane, where Johnny had an apartment ready to go, and on the morning of March 20, 1942, we got married, with only an army buddy of Johnny’s and his girlfriend to stand up for us. Nobody could make it out from Chicago, because it was wartime, and traveling like that just wasn’t easy. But I got two telegrams from my family, which was so thrilling, plus cards and money from both our families. Even Dad, who was so against it, sent us money, with a note: “Use it wisely.” So we threw ourselves a nice breakfast afterward at the Desert Hotel to celebrate.

  I was happy as a lark. I wore a simple but nice suit that was a real soft yellow with a corsage of purple violets and a hat and veil that were black. Johnny was in his army uniform. Johnny could be romantic when he wanted to be, but my favorite photo from that day is of him right before he has to sign the church’s marriage registry. He’s got this “Boy, what did I do?” look on his face, like he didn’t know whether he wanted to sign or not, and I’m laughing like hell. It’s so cute. The guys there were so funny about it, too. They kept saying, “John, we’re waiting in line if you don’t want her!”

  Immediately we knew that getting married was the right thing to do. Our one-bedroom apartment in Spokane was cozy enough, and I made good friends right away in that building, one of them a pregnant girl whose husband was overseas. With so many people around me in the same boat, I never got afraid or anything, even the times Johnny might be at the base all night on duty. And while I always missed my family, I knew we were getting the best start for our marriage away from any potential criticism. And I didn’t know how to do anything, really. The first time I washed a floor, I used so many soap suds that it seemed like I was rinsing and re-rinsing that surface for days!

  Our wedding day: Johnny being funny, me laughing. I love it.

  Then our first child, Kenny, was born, nine months and five days after our wedding, which certainly pleased my father, I’ll have you know. But it wasn’t long after that that I took Kenny back to Chicago, because Johnny was being sent to Laredo, Texas, for more training, and he didn’t think I’d want to follow him. “It’s scroungy and beastly hot,” Johnny said. “I wouldn’t ask you to come here, Mag.” I didn’t notice any of the other wives going there, either. So I moved into an apartment close to my dad’s store, with my sister Irene as a roommate.

  Then Johnny was sent to Denver, and his commanding officer said it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the men’s wives to join them. I had to agree. Kenny was thirteen months old at the time, and I ended up loving Denver. Between Spokane and Denver—two gorgeous cities—I felt like I was luckier than a lot of other army wives. Rae’s husband, Jim, for instance, was sent to Tullahoma, Tennessee. Let’s just say Rae wasn’t too keen on the place.

  When Johnny’s stint in the army was up, and we were finally able to settle down in Chicago, I realized that Johnny had never lived in a house—he’d grown up in apartments—and I, meanwhile, had lived only in houses until our early married days. I said, “Johnny, I want a house.” He said, “Fine.” We moved into a house one of my brothers had lived in, which was only a block away from my parents. We never suffered for babysitters, because Kenny was their first grandchild in a while, since their other grandkids had grown by that time.

  When it came to child rearing, Johnny took to it like a pro. He never complained about changing diapers, or giving a bath, or doing laundry. He was really good about that. There was no henpecking going on, either! I just want to make that clear, in case anybody’s thinking he was unhappy with sharing these chores. I simply got a great guy for a husband.

  You want to know how great Johnny was? Because we were living paycheck to paycheck after the war ended—Johnny having gotten his solid but not-so-high-paying job back at Railway Express—we could only afford a house that need
ed a lot of work. (Really, every house we ever bought was like that!) At the time we moved into our first home, Johnny didn’t know a whole lot about plumbing, carpentry, and so on. The most he ever did growing up, living in an apartment, was paint walls. But the guys he worked with knew all that stuff, and they were only too happy to show him. And Johnny took to it all beautifully. He loved learning how to build a fence, tile a floor, make dormers. The thing about Johnny was, whatever he concentrated on, he did right. That endeared him to Dad. “Such a fine young man!” he’d say about Johnny.

  One thing we would always joke about was how useless I felt watching his workmates’ wives help their husbands with all the fixing-up jobs. They seemed to know all about it, too! One couple was Polish, and another was German. And here I was, the Irish girl who—at the most—could be a gofer if he needed a certain tool or brush or a pail of water. But my abilities stopped at housework.

  One day I said to Johnny, “Gee, John, you know who you should’ve married? A good strong German or Polish girl. They’d be working with you on those tiles, putting them down. They’d take on half the work! This Irish girl here is only handing you stuff.”

  That was always good for a laugh between us.

  “She’d have the walls painted by the time you got home from work!” I’d say.

  “I’d get a really hearty meal, too,” he’d add. “Sausages and roasts and stews.”

  “A good cook and someone who knows how to make dormers!”

  Then we’d take it even further, really exaggerate.

  “Here I am,” I’d say, “wanting you to stop and take a break, have a cup of tea and a piece of cake with me. She’d want to work straight through. Eight hours. Maybe a lunch break. But that’s it.”

  It would end with a silly plea on my part. “If anything happens to me, John, don’t make the same mistake twice and marry an Irish girl. Find yourself a nice strong German or Polish girl. You’ll be a lot healthier!”

  People want to know what the secret to our marriage was, why it lasted so long. I don’t know if I have an answer outside of the fact that neither one of us liked to fight. We’d rather laugh and talk pleasantly. We also balanced each other really well. Where I would worry, Johnny would be calm. That’s not to say we didn’t have disagreements. But we knew how to talk about them. And laugh about them. There’s nothing greater in a relationship than being able to laugh about yourself.

  I think what we had was a way to see past a disagreement. When we first moved to the suburb of Forest Park, we bought a house that—you guessed it—needed work. One day I decided to buy some new drapes, and Johnny offered to paint the dining room while I was gone. We’d already mixed the paint to get the color we wanted. I thought it was great that he was going to jump right into this big project.

  Outside the Polo Lounge. Don’t we look young, healthy, and rich?

  I don’t remember how long I was gone, but when I got back, he had a whole wall painted. “How do you like it, Mag?” he said excitedly.

  Now, those of you who’ve done a paint job know that paint can be funny. You mix and mix, you get it to the color you want, but when you actually put it on the wall, it might not look like what you wanted. The light might hit it a certain way, whatever. Well, right then and there, I was looking at a wall color I didn’t like.

  “Aw, John, that’s not what I wanted at all!” I said.

  “But that’s the color you—”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “But it should be more blue-ish. It’s too gray!”

  Then I said the words no husband ever really wants to hear. “John, do you think you could paint it over again?”

  I expected him to come back with, “No, I’ll paint the other walls to make it contrasting. We’ll live with it.” Because, honestly, that’s what I would have said in that situation.

  Instead, he gently replied, “Are you sure?”

  I said, “Yeah, John, I really would love it to be that blue color.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it again.”

  Really, how could you not love a guy who’ll do that for you, and not complain? Of course, he did a great job, and it looked beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to point that out to everybody who saw it. He was so good to me our whole life. When we were much older, I brought up the wall to him and said, “John, why were you so good to me?”

  He laughed at the memory of it, and then he said, “You know why I did that, Mag? Because whenever I would do anything, you would be so happy about it, you’d say ‘I love it!’ and then throw your arms around me and kiss me. I loved doing stuff for you, because I got that reaction.”

  On top of Mount Spokane, and on top of the world.

  That was the truth. I meant every kind word I ever said about Johnny. And I loved saying kind things about him. I don’t know what else to say, really. I always felt really lucky to have him. Because a lot of marriages aren’t happy. You see couples who love to fight, who love to fight in front of you, and I wonder, doesn’t that take something out of you? Don’t you tend to say things you regret? I loved Johnny too much, and I think he loved me too much, to do that. I don’t know if people go into a marriage thinking it’s going to be perfect, but what I always felt was, Johnny was perfect for me. And I hope I was perfect for him.

  I’ve included in this book one of our favorite photos, from our wedding day. After the ceremony and our breakfast, Johnny had gotten a friend to loan him a car for the day, so we drove straight to Mount Spokane. It was a beautiful spring day in that part of the country—nicer weather than we were used to in Chicago—and we made our honeymoon out of taking in the view from the top.

  I’m so glad we got a picture of that moment, holding hands, happy, ready to start our lives together. It’s a photo Johnny and I often took out and looked at, and whenever we did, I’d always say, “We were on top of the world that day, Johnny.”

  He always replied, “Mag, we still are.”

  Maggie’s Dating Rules for a Young Gentleman or Lady

  RULE #1: Never get in an automobile. This means trouble.

  RULE #2: Keep it under wraps. No need to dress provocatively and spoil the surprise. If it were up to me, young ladies would still be wearing high-collared blouses and buttoned shoes. And a bustle. A six-rib bustle, not one of those slutty three-rib kinds.

  RULE #3: Don’t overdo the makeup. We all know what boys want. No need to encourage them by appearing tarty.

  RULE #4: No rock and roll. Too suggestive. You know what’s nice to listen to on a date? Nat King Cole or that sweet Mel Tormé. At the most, Rosie Clooney.

  RULE #5: Do not have sex. You’re not married, for cryin’ out loud.

  Life Is a Box of Wine

  Attention anyone who is currently in AA, or any alcohol-related treatment program: Do not read this chapter. It will surely cause you to have what is called “a slip” in the Big Book of AA. You have never read a love letter to booze like this in your life. This is Maggie really letting loose. I’ve never had a drop of alcohol in my life, but by the end of this chapter, I wanted to drink something called a Tom Collins, and then I wanted to have sex with someone named Tom Collins. Now, if you are someone who is able to imbibe on a casual level, or feels like giving up on decades of sobriety right now, this is your chapter. You have to be carded to even read it. Bottoms up, kids!]

  Before I tipped it, readers, I sipped it.

  I grew up at a time when cocktails and mixed drinks were the rage. That’s what my older sisters drank when they went out, or were staying in their own homes with company. (Never under my parents’ roof, because Dad didn’t keep liquor there and didn’t like women drinking, anyway.) These drinks my sisters liked had names like whiskey sour, Manhattan, Brandy Alexander, Old-Fashioned, Tom Collins, and, of course, the famous martini.

  My sisters always looked so sophisticated with these drinks. Especially when they smoked, too. Boy, did I want to smoke. I thought it was the epitome of glamour and sophistication, and I loved imagining myself in a fancy rest
aurant holding a lit cigarette, like I was Myrna Loy or Claudette Colbert. But whenever I tried, I’d just hack and cough, so I said, “Forget it.” That kind of glamour wasn’t in the cards. (Dad hated women smoking, too. It was unladylike and meant you were “tough.”)

  I didn’t have an urge to drink, though, even when I came of age. So when I started to date Johnny, and we’d go to taverns and hang out there for hours with friends while somebody played a piano and sang, I felt like I had to learn to drink to be sociable. I was tired of hearing, “You mean you’re not drinking?”

  Johnny was a beer man, but I never had a taste for beer—although a cold one always looked like the right thing to drink on a hot summer day—so what I picked out for myself was a highball. But you’d hardly call it an alcoholic drink. I’d order a tall glass that had a teeny little shot of whiskey, and a whole lot of ginger ale and ice. I didn’t really like whiskey. By itself, it was dry and horrible and stuck in my throat. But I loved ginger ale. So I’d nurse my weak highball for four hours. One glass. Sip, sip, sip. The bartender always wondered how I even tasted anything. I know he meant the alcohol. But I tasted ginger ale at least!

  My then-boyfriend, husband-to-be had the best response. Johnny always said, “Mag, you’re a cheap date.”

  That always gave me a kick.

  My first experience with wine came when my dad, who was a solid beer drinker, decided to take his doctor’s advice and drink a little red wine. So when I’d go to visit him, I’d bring him a bottle of Mogen David, which is a cheap, really sweet wine. If you’ve never had it, I dare say there’s hardly anything sweeter that comes in a bottle. My dad would sip his one little glass, and he’d pour me one, too. (I had to be married for Dad to offer me an alcoholic beverage.)