Just spent an overnight at my parents house and enjoyed hanging with the 'rents. I grew up with many grandparents due to divorce and remarrying, so I'm always impressed that my parents have managed to overcome the odds and are still deeply in love after all these years. This is perfect story for Story Telling Sunday, a really cool event that Sian hosts. Yes, I know it's Monday and I'm just posting this now. At least this week I have the day right!
The Back Story of Our Wedding
for Mitra
by Bruce H. Mero
Not being
able to find an acceptable apartment for your Mom to live her last year at SU,
your Grandmother Lotz purchased a multi-family house in a nice neighborhood on
Ackerman Avenue in Syracuse. Apartments on the second and third floors of the new
house were rented to grad students at Syracuse University. The first floor apartment
was to be your Mom's apartment, but Grandma insisted that she not live alone,
so I became her roommate. We'd
essentially lived together for the last year, first in a tiny apartment near
the University, then in the house we shared with others in Merida, Venezuela.
It was natural that we lived together this last year, though Grandma was not
readily convinced. Eventually she relented after I'd been there for a month or
so. She was not scandalized by the fact that we were living together, more the
fear that someone at her place of employment, Morrisville College, would find
out and her standing as faculty member and a woman's dorm director might be
jeopardized. I agreed to keep the place in good repair as a condition of my
habitation there. I also paid Allegra $50 a month. There wasn't much fixing to
do, mostly keeping the tiny lawn mowed and the snow shoveled.
Our last
semester in the School of Landscape Architecture (LA) was extremely busy. Our
class was the first to be required to complete a new curriculum...the school
was expanding to a five-year program and offering multiple bachelor's degrees.
At some point prior to the start of the last semester, the faculty realized
that there were a few courses they would need to add to our course load before
awarding us the Bachelor's of Landscape Architecture, so they squeezed-in a
couple of new requirements to our already filled schedule. Contract Law was one
of them, I remember.
At some point
early in the last year, your Mom encountered a stray dog at dawn one morning in
the Marshall Hall foyer and adopted it on the spot. She named it George in
honor of two professors in our school, both Georges...Curry and Earle. George
attended class with us every day, but was especially funny in the 8 AM Contract
Law class, taught by the Dean of the school, Bradford Sears. George would roll
over on the floor under the desks and groan mournfully, several times during
the hour. Classmates would laugh and Sears would ask pointedly if the subject
was boring to George. Dean Sears knew the stuff he was jamming down our throats
early each morning, three days a week, was dry. He didn't like it either, but
he drew the short straw when the faculty was deciding who would teach the
course. He'd convinced us that it was important that we be exposed to the
concepts he was presenting, so we all suffered, including Sears. He promised us
all an A in the course if we attended every class and did the assigned reading.
No final Exam. Sears gave George a B. He'd not done the required reading.
A couple of
weeks before the start of our last year, Sears and several of the Professor
Georges asked me if I would be interested in an internship at the National
Headquarters of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in Washington,
DC. It would require that I attend meetings of university student groups
affiliated with ASLA around the country and provide updates at monthly meetings
at ASLA. I know that your Mom was pissed (she's still pissed) that she was not
asked to do the internship, she was certainly more qualified than I for the
position. The all male faculty, however was chauvinistic and just a bit
paternalistic and felt a man in the job to be more appropriate. They were all
fond of your Mom and feared for her, exposed to the male world they all knew
well. The faculty offered me an A for six credit hours, each term if I'd do it,
which I did. I flew all over the country to meet with LA students and to DC
once a month for meetings at ASLA. I made a huge number of connections doing
the internship and met and spent time with the most influential folks in the
profession I was planning to join, however I was able to parlay those
connections into only one job offer, a part-time slot at the National Park
Service in DC, which I declined. I'd had enough of Washington by then.
The job
market for LA grads was horrible at that time. Your Mom and I spent days
writing, revising and mailing resumes...over 30 each, I recall. We never got
called or the courtesy of a single rejection letter, nothing. No jobs.
It was late
in our last semester when George Earle introduced your Mom and I to a former
student of his that had just returned to the States from a tour in the Peace
Corps in Iran. During the course of a multiple-hour conversation and several
pitchers of beer, our new acquaintance learned of our disappointing job hunt
and suggested that we apply to the Peace Corps. From there you know the story. They
offered us both positions in the Peace Corps in Iran. We would be leaving the
US ten days after school ended in June. The Peace Corps insisted that we be
married before we joined them as volunteers if we wanted to be assigned the
same country. We'd already planned to be married, the time schedule for that became
much more truncated once the Peace Corps offering was accepted and confirmed.
We made
arrangements with a Catholic Priest I'd known for years, Father Tosti, to marry
us. He nervously laughed when we asked him if he'd do the ceremony on Joshua's
Rock at Lake George, eventually convincing us that a wedding in the Catholic
Church in Canastota was more appropriate. Your Mom found a pattern she really
liked and sewed her own wedding dress those last couple of weeks, while
finishing classes, finishing final projects, studying for and taking exams and
accompanying me on my last few trips as an ASLA intern. Her dress was inspired
by a lacy, handmade Mantilla that she had purchased while in Spain as a 15
year-old exchange student. That Mantilla became her veil.
Graduation
day at Syracuse University was June 10. We skipped the graduation ceremony and
got married that day instead. SU was not amused and withheld our diplomas for
months. Our George was at the ceremony, so were the other Georges, Brad Sears
and other of the faculty who had become our friends over the years. Bamberger
was our best man. Caryl was your Mom's maid of honor. Two LA classmates were
ushers, Steve Dauber and Fred Noetcher. Fred was also the photographer.
Grandpa Harry
walked your mom down the aisle. Your Mom was a little shaky just before the
ceremony. When Grandpa Harry clasped her arm to begin the walk, he whispered
that he had his car running outside and they could skip town before anyone was
the wiser. She asserted vehemently "No, I want to marry Bruce, I 'm just a little nervous."
We paid
Father Tosti $50 for his services and had planned to pay the organist the same
amount, but she fell asleep before the end of the ceremony and was still
sleeping, slumped on the bench at the organ when we left the church. I tore-up
her check.
Steve drove
the "get-away-car" from St. Agatha's to the Landmark Inn in
Bouckville, where Grandma Lotz had arranged a reception. We were still in front
of the church and well wishers were still throwing rice at the car when Steve
lit .....
[author's note: times then were different and your mom and I
and our friends were considered Hippies, and as such, we sometimes partook in a
recreational inebriant which was popular with our generation at the time,
however it was also illegal.]
... and
passed it to your Mom in the back seat. Needless to say, the ride to Bouckville
was a trip. We asked Steve to stop several times on the way to take
photographs. The first stop was at a park project I had worked on a year
earlier. Fred got some nice photos if us in front of a little waterfalls. The
second set of photos was on a knoll in an alfalfa field up the road a little
from the park.
Our wedding
reception at the Landmark Inn was unorthodox.
We had no money to hire a band, so except for the occasional dime in the
juke box, there was no music and consequently no dancing. No open bar, either. No
bouquet toss, no garter belt, no posed photos. At least the chicken was good, not
rubber chicken! Mike offered a toast, but neither of us was drinking (no need)
to toast with and his words are lost to memory. Much of the reception was a
complete blur. I remember Steve motioning us to go outside with him at one
point and both of us refusing. All three Georges were there, I only know that
because we have a photo.
Your Mom and
I spent our first wedded night in a cheap motel, The Birches on Route 5 near
Clinton. We had to show the inscriptions on the inside of our wedding rings to
convince the ancient lady at the desk to rent us a room...that we were really
married and not just shacking up for the night.
Four days later we were in
Philadelphia for our official Peace Corps indoctrination, three days after that
we landed in Tehran. So began a spectacular, whirl-wind of wedded life, now progressed to 40 years!
