The day before I left to fight in a war in a far, foreign country, we eloped from her college in San Marcos, Texas up to the Georgetown Justice of the Peace. The real J.P. was not working that day -- we had to get the "Acting" J.P. to marry us. I wonder if it was even legal. [That certainly was prophetic -- the acting was to go on for well over 20 years!]
We stopped for supper at a nice restaurant before returning to my regular visitor's motel near the San Marcos college. We didn't even get to spend our wedding night together -- she had to be signed back in to her dorm by 11 PM. We made love a single time on our wedding night, and just got her signed in to the dorm in time. I left for the long drive to Spokane, Washington's Survival & POW School the next morning. First, I took my bride from the dorm for breakfast, and returned her, and we said our secret-marriage goodbye publicly and in too great a hurry.
A Texas highway patrolman stopped me at dusk that day in a speed trap just past the crest of a hill near Amarillo. The daytime speed limit of 70 mph had just gone to 65 (nighttime limit) and I was still at 75. I pulled my military I.D. & surrendered it with my driver's license being sure to say my older Volkswagen "bug" was taking me on the first leg of my year's tour in Vietnam. My new commander would not be happy to see me arrive with my first speeding ticket ever. (I hoped the cop might have been a former G.I. & could imagine having to leave his new wife behind.) Might have worked -- I got to continue with only a Warning Ticket.
posted by Richard A @ 3:49 PM
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