Our first visit to
the Ozarks was shortly after we were married, a girlfriend 26 y o., was
marrying a 45 y o man. On the day she
married she became a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. Even her husband’s first wife was present,
the mother of his first four adult children.
The groom owned a business out of Chicago that built speed boats and my
girlfriend worked as his executive secretary.
She was a wonderful sweet strong Christian woman from the South. I asked her at the wedding reception. “Why
him?” She said, “Well, lots of guys like
me but he was the only one that asked me out.”
My sweetheart and I were the only couple there of the same
age. Many couples were older men with young wives. Most of the men were airline
pilots. Now the unusual reception was
held on a flotilla. Five house boats were tied together side by side and
anchored in a waterway in the Ozarks, Missouri.
Charles and I stayed close throughout the reception but ventured out for
a while to mingle, this reception went on for hours.
One houseboat had a huge shrimp cocktail table with a tall
tower in the middle of more shrimp going up, up, up, in layers. Very
prestigious looking with cocktail sauce in silver bowls. The next houseboat was a lounge area that had
a huge bar with bartender, anything you wanted they made it. The next houseboat was open with dance floor
and comfortable couches and an appetizer table in the back. Then there was houseboat with the gigantic
wedding cake with plates and forks you could eat anytime you like. The last
houseboat was an area that had a changing room, you could put on your swimsuit
and dive in, go waterskiing, and sit on floats with a cocktail in your hand.
As we began to talk with the other guests, it became clear
that us two kids had not been quite as accomplished as the older men here and
they began to brag of all they owned and where they traveled, etc. Not to be out done, I thought. “I will never
see these people again in my life so I will tell a tall tale about me and they
will never know the difference.”
I told them I owned a train car and travelled around the
continental United States when I was not working at my dental office, I was an
oral surgeon. (I actually had worked for
an oral surgeon and knew the business well)
So as these drunk pompous pilots said they had to go to work and fly, I
asked, “You are going to fly a plane drunk?”
They said, “Yes, have you not heard of auto-pilot? I fly drunk all the
time.”
Southern belle with no life experience I was appalled to
hear this. So as I made my way to find
my Sweetheart and tell him of this news…He approaches me and without discussing
a thing whispers, “Quick, over here, if anyone ask, I own a Cessna 208 Caravan plane that seats 12 passengers!” I started laughing
out loud, “If anyone ask you, I own a train car and I’m an oral surgeon.”
We both had a good laugh, he tired of the BS and I tired of
the BS had both lied without consulting the other, I knew I had married the
right man for me. Little did I know, I
was feeling a bit nauseated while on this flotilla, when I returned home to NY
I found I was 4 months pregnant with our first son.
I thought pf the Ozarks today because my sweetheart wanted a
fruitcake for Christmas. I ordered one
through Williams Sonoma called The Assumption Abbey Fruitcake, a monastery in
the Ozarks. The recipe is an old one
passed on to them from a chef that served this fruitcake to the Duke and
Duchess of Windsor.
Merry Christmas Sweetheart, I love you
forever.
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