How Did You Decide to Get Married?

The timing of this question was startling. Unexpected and initially uninviting. Digging through feelings can be difficult (memories) and avoided when possible. And to be honest, we are talking over fifty-years ago. Researching Kith and Kin, our family trees, and now writing a personal story, One Story in Two Voices, found this an abrupt yet, maybe, a fortuitous question.

Let me begin with a shared statement repeated often, starting while in diapers, certainly in my preadolescent years. It was not a secret at any point in my life. When ask why, I have no answer, then or now. As I entered my teen years, I was not interested in becoming a teenager. My request to Mother Nature, ignored. But for those who read One Story in Two Voices, you may get a clue or two, assuming you can read between the lines. My nine-year-old pledge:

I will never get married.

I will never have children.

I am going to live to one-hundred twenty.

So, married with one-child have but one goal on-the-table, live to one-hundred twenty. If I miss that one, I would be a perfect zero-for-three. If I succeed, I would live until 2069. Most days, I wonder if humanity will make it that far. Or would I be the last man standing or sitting under the bleachers (foreshadowing a future story)?

My mother married at seventeen. My dad, twenty-two. My dad served in the U. S. Navy from January 13, 1944, until May 17, 1946. They were married April 2, 1948. I enter the scene May 3, 1949, a little over thirteen months later. At this point in the story, I have way too many questions and more research to be considered, but why did they decide to get married?

Norma at seventeen. I was twenty-two. Married August 21, 1971. Should I live past a hundred, I will tell the story of how we met. Warren Thomas was born on June 1, 1975, three years, nine months, eleven days later. How did I decide to get married? This is a question fully answered at a later date. For now, I will only say nature has a way to bring opposites together. It was a complex series of tangled events that led to that day at Hoffman Park. A simple question… a positive response. And here we are, some fifty-six years later.