Actually I believe at least short term Lacy going down helped the Packers start to think outside the box a little. All I know is that the 2nd half of the game last night was one of the most entertaining halves I've seen is a while.
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I've been obsessing on learning WordPress and Themes and and dealing with Hosts and cPanals and nobody can speak English when I have problems. It's been a nightmare. One of those learning experiences where you don't know what you don't know and cannot visualize what is supposed to be happening and the customer support is in India and named Fernando who SEEMS to work 24 hours a day and only answers half the question.
This morning I try to log into my admin and I can't because there is no record of my email address so I can't reset the password. sigh! Come on - I was on the site all day yesterday!!! I contact them this morning and tell them there is no record of my email address and they say "OK we will reset your password". sigh
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WEDDING
It all started on a Saturday evening in October 1945, at a dance. I was there with a young man named Bill. I was seventeen. At about 9:00 o’clock, Bill said “Evie I’d like you to meet my cousin, Dev Melotte.” I turned and saw my husband. I’m not speaking of a decision made, or love at first sight, or anything romantic. It was a prosaic recognition. I recognized him as “my husband” exactly as I would have recognized him if we had been married for ever and he had just come back into the room. I knew with absolute certainty that he would be my husband, and I was only surprised to find I was going to marry a man shorter than I was.
I said “Hi,” and he said “May I have this dance?” and from then on he monopolized me the whole evening. He claimed every dance that I would allow and cut in on every other partner. While we danced he did his best to convince me that Bill was a good friend, but no sort of man for a young girl like me to be alone with, so I should dump Bill and let Dev escort me safely home. When we sat out a dance Bill was on one side of me, Dev was on the other, and it was Dev’s arm across the back of my chair. He talked steadily, demanding all of my attention with jokes, Air Force anecdotes, compliments, nonsense, and questions. He bought me soft drinks and snacks. He made a date with me for lunch the following day. Sometime during the evening he slipped his car keys to a friend and asked him to drive his car back to Fort. That, of course, left him stranded so he had to bum a ride home with Bill and me and on the way he talked Bill into taking me home first. When Bill walked me to my door, Dev came along.
The next day he picked me up for lunch at 11:30. At 2:00 he asked me to marry him. I said, “Don’t be silly, we haven’t known each other for twenty-four hours yet!” He said “Okay, I’ll wait.”
We spent all afternoon riding around the countryside, talking and laughing. We sat on the grass in parks, talking and laughing. We drank chocolate malts in a little ice cream parlor, talking and laughing. I found I was hardly stuttering at all. I was too busy trying to keep up with the rapid-fire changes of subject, and answering questions, and laughing and when I did stutter, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He seemed to feel it was a rather charming idiosyncrasy, like a French accent, or a Southern drawl.
We went to the Edgewater for a late supper. As he was nursing a last cup of coffee and I was finishing my second dessert, he looked at his watch. He said “It’s 9:00 o’clock. We’ve known each other for twenty-four hours. Will you marry me?” I looked across the table at him for a moment. I knew I was going to marry him. Why not acknowledge it now? I said, “yes.”
We agreed that we wouldn’t marry until he was discharged from the Air Force and I had graduated from High School, and we were both settled in jobs and had found a place to live. We would have a very private church ceremony with our two best friends as attendants and only the three available parents as guests.
For two more days we were together from school let-out time until midnight. Then he went back to his base in Biloxi, Mississippi and we wrote to each other daily.
Meanwhile, the situation at my home grew steadily more turbulent. My brother and two half-brothers had discarded all civilized controls and were the talk of the town. They were engaged in criminal activities and the police were sure of it but had no proof yet. My mother was so mentally disturbed as to be almost non-functional. To protect her son, she covered for all of them, and expected me to do the same. The police had come to my classroom to pull me out for questioning; school had been unbearable for me after that, and I’d finally dropped out.
I told Dev in my letters that it was bad, but I didn’t tell him how bad.
Dev was discharged in February of 1946. He dropped off his luggage at his home and came directly to mine. He spent perhaps fifteen minutes taking in the situation and then piled me into the car and drove to the Jefferson County Courthouse to see how one went about marrying a minor.
Dev’s parents objected to our plans so strongly that they refused to attend the ceremony. My grandfather forbade the marriage and when I refused he disowned me. My mother didn’t care one way or the other, but felt that a wedding, particularly a church wedding, was inappropriate at that time, considering all the family problems. She certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with it, and suggested that we should go out-of-state and be married by a Justice of the Peace.
In two and half weeks we had gotten the license, found jobs, located a one-room apartment and been married in the Methodist Church in Elkhorn.
I wore a suit-dress of light blue crepe. It had a slim skirt and a peplumed jacked closed with about thirty tiny self-covered buttons and self-fabric loops. It was a size 4 and I had to stuff an entire pair of stockings into the cups of my size 30 AA “training” bra to give me enough shape to make the dress hang right. I had a corsage of a white rose and baby’s breath. The marriage was witnessed by our attendants. There were no guests.
I was very calm until the minister said, “Evelyn, will you take this man…” when something in my brain exploded into blind panic. (“Oh my God what am I doing, this is for life, I’m too young---.)” I may have made some tiny move backward, or maybe Dev just sensed the panic. We always did walk in and out of each other’s minds as if they were adjoining rooms. Instantly, Dev’s hand clamped around my wrist, hard, and that steadied me. The panic left as suddenly as it had come. The minister was saying, “…as long as you both shall live?” I looked at Dev, and I said “I will.”
I don’t remember anything else until we were standing outside man, and wife.
Many years later I found that the best man had told the maid of honor, “I give that marriage six months.” She had replied, “you’re an optimist. I give it no more than six weeks.”
It lasted until death did us part, thirty-nine years later. It wasn’t always an easy marriage, but it was never, never dull. Often I wished it were a little duller. Sometimes I thought how pleasant it would be to be divorced and live out my remaining years in quiet, restful dullness. But never, not for a moment, did I ever regret marrying him.
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Reading the above for me was interesting. My first date with DJ I knew instantly that she was the woman I would marry. Without a doubt, 100% sure of it. I waited 1 year until I asked.
DJ and I were married in Las Vegas at The Little Chapel of the West. I remember everything of that day. Record high temp, Eddie the Limo driver and his broken down limo (with no air conditioning).
We were staying at The Rio and I remember sitting there with my new wife in one of their bars thinking how surreal it was. I even remember the bowl of mixed nuts on the table. What a waste of brain cells. I'm sure there are more important things I have forgotten yet I remember nuts?
Marrying DJ was the best gamble of my life and I have never ever regretted this bet (there are a few gambles I HAVE regretted* LOL)
* There is one horrific bad beat where DJ said I turned white and almost fainted. Once a long time ago there was a Bear game. I told DJ that all the Bears had to do was kneel down on the 20 yard line and win by 9 and a very very bad nightmare day would not be SO bad.
Instead of kneeling they ran the ball up the middle, fumbled and the other team picked the ball up, ran for 80 yards for a meaningless touchdown as time expired. The Bears still won by 2 but me and my fellow team of wagerers were left gasping for air. This was when I and The Goddess had a 1-900 service in Football America selling picks from my Bridgejumper system. THAT was a weird time for sure. It involved a shark asking me if I wanted to move to Haiti and help him open a casino.
Haiti? ummmmm no.
But I digress.
Have a great weekend
