A long long time ago, in the US, in Kansas, in 1970, a young girl turned 19. The day after she turned 19, she got married. After she was married, they traveled to Enid Oklahoma, some 200 miles, to start their new life.
The weird/funny/sad story now begins.
When I got married, it was first part of June. The wheat was ripening all over Oklahoma and Kansas. Said husband and his father farmed little plots here and there and put in wheat, then harvested it. His father was retired, so they just planted and harvested plots here and there around Enid.
Well, said Kansas girl did not quite get how important wheat is to farmers in Oklahoma and/or Kansas and/or all through the midwest! I wasn't completely clueless because my daddy, who taught HS, did wheat harvesting for a friend in the summer. We loved having daddy come home, covered in wheat dirt and tell us to look in his shirt pocket - a pocket that wiggled. Many times there was a bunny there, that was orphaned. Oh the fun we had with those bunnies. But I digress from my original story.
My husband and I got married at 1 in the afternoon. We were able to leave the reception in Fowler, Kansas around 3 and start for Oklahoma. Stopped around Ashland, Kansas to wipe off the shaving cream all over the lights and windshield so we could see better. (a funny note - our friends had put a peace sign on our car windows with shaving cream. My aunt saw it and blew her stack, and wiped it off. She thought it was a dirty/evil sign)
Pulled into his parents around 6 ish. He took me into the house, because some how, someway, his parents beat us home although we left way before them. His dad, I might add, drove like a bat out of hell!
My brand new husband took me into the house where his mom was, and disappeared. I talked to his mom a bit, then went into his bedroom because I was wondering what happened to him. He was nowhere to be found. I started crying! It had been a LONG, hot day! I was exhausted, hungry and scared to death. My husband had already abandoned me - or so I thought!
His mom came into the bedroom, saw me crying, and went ballistic on her son - aka my new husband. She stomped to the door, threw it open, and stomped onto the front porch. She bellowed at my husband, and I honestly think you could have heard her 30 miles away. She lit into him like a firecracker. Chewed him up one side and down the other - how dare he leave his brand new wife in the house without a word to where he was going and what he was doing. He was - WORKING ON THE COMBINE SO THEY COULD TAKE A SAMPLE OF WHEAT!
He came into the house, like a scared puppy, with his head held low. Meekly apologized and said - Dad and I were just going to cut a sample of wheat to see if we could start cutting tomorrow. Calmed me down and went BACK OUTSIDE to finish on the combine. They drove the combine to a wheat field, took the sample, took it to the elevator to test the moisture and came back.
By 9, I was starving, and tired, and cranky, and wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into. He took me to a Mexican restaurant and assured me the food wasn't hot. Taco Grande! I swear, the heat in that food came flying out and slapped me across the head. So boo boo number 2. I was ready to tell him to take me home to Kansas.
We finally finished eating - he got me something not so hot - and went to our home - an OLD 55 by 8 trailer house. I walked in, and almost threw up. Seems said new husband and his friend had batched there for a couple of weeks. Beer cans, cigarette butts, trash all over the trailer. And I do mean all OVER!
Luckily, I had put fresh sheets on the bed a few weeks before that when he came and got me from college in Alva.
We went to bed because I was exhausted, without picking up a single thing of trash. Next morning, he went to cut wheat and I started shoveling out the trailer. My next door neighbor saw me and started laughing. She asked me if it was hideous inside because Charley and friend had been batching there. I told her yes, and continued to shovel out the debris. Worked all day long to clean out that pit and the mess!
So started my new life in Enid, OK. It was a really good thing I loved this man, because if I'd had my own car, I would have headed back to Kansas as fast as the law allowed.
Here we are 51 years later. He's in a wheelchair from a car accident or right now, he would be in a combine somewhere around here, cutting wheat!
