Home Sweet Home

After being married for just a couple of months, we went to go look at a house in Liverpool.  Mark had already decided that he disliked the creepy landlord and that we were going to just buy a house instead.  I was making a very, very nice salary and we could easily afford a house between our two incomes.  Of course, my plan was to be a stay-at-home mom.  Mark’s plan was to just have me and my job and my income for the rest of forever without any children.  The house we looked at was an adorable ranch that was meticulously maintained by an older couple moving to Florida.  It was so perfect that we asked my dad to come and look at it with us a second time to see if it would be a good investment.  My father thought it was very well built (my dad built houses when I was a kid so he knew his stuff).  He was impressed by the layout and the ‘bones’ of the house.  My dad also mumbled something under his breath about Mark making minimum wage and how was he going to afford a house that was so expensive.  I found out then that my parents paid something like $6500 for their house so this was really pricey to my father.  So, just like all the other times we didn’t listen to what my dad said, Mark and I decided to make an offer on the house without Mark having a well-paying job or a real future.  I think the house was something like $40,000 and we called the realtor and made an offer.  I remember one thing about the house more than anything else and that was the ceramic statue of a boy holding a lantern in the front yard by the walkway.  I remember asking the homeowners if we bought the house could we have the boy with the lantern and they said “no.”  And not in a nice way either!  The day after we signed and the homeowner accepted our offer, Mark got fired from his job at Bresee Chevrolet.  I don’t quite remember why he got fired but I think it had something to do with him running around for parts for them and when he came back, they had told him the wrong thing so he had to go back out and get a different part in a hurry because it was the end of the day.  Mark used his colorful language and told off the manager of the car place.  They asked Mark to take a little drive in his own car away from his job!  So, when he came to pick me up from work that night, we sat in the little red Chevy Chevette very quietly as we realized we needed to call the realtor and rescind our offer.  That’s exactly what we did.  We made a choice to wait to buy a house until our 20 year old selves could figure out what we would do next.  I wanted to tell the real estate lady that the reason we backed out was because we really wanted the boy with the lantern statue to stay with the house.  There are so many times that I wish I listened to my dad about so many things.  I think it’s kinda like God.  We hear what He has to say, contemplate, and then do our own thing.  

A rich man, indeed

Mark was outside washing and waxing our little red car one day while I was in the tiny kitchen.  He kept coming in and out of the apartment and getting different tools and paper towels and busying himself with some project he drummed up out in the yard.  He had bought some white decal strips for the car and planned to spruce it up a little.  Remember, this is the man that drove a neon green Dodge Challenger with metallic 4” wide stripes down the sides and shag carpeting on the dashboard.  A plain, small, red Chevy needed something to liven it up.  He was measuring and stretching and sticking the decals on the side of the vehicle and with perfect precision he placed the stripes along the side.  He asked me to come out and look at the first installment as he carefully lined up the back of the car’s decal with the door panel.  It was honestly quite impressive.  So, happy that he actually knew what he was doing, I went back inside and proceeded to vacuum and dust our three pieces of furniture.  When I shut the vacuum off, I heard a whirring sound coming from outside.  It sounded like Mark was also vacuuming but that couldn’t be possible because we only had one (A hoover canister that I was quite in love with!)  I walked over to the window and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  There he was, Mark Searle, bent over the hood of the car with a drill and boring a ½” hole in the hood of the car with the drill!!!!!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? I shouted and ran at the same time to try to stop the carnage.  It was too late.  The popping sound of the drill going through the hood was just completed.  He grinned from one ear to another, pulled something out from his pocket, and popped it into the hole he created.  It was a Cadillac hood ornament that he bought from work.  Yup, he put a hole in the car and a hood ornament on the front of it.  Mark Searle always had rich man’s taste on a poor man’s budget!  That car ran until it had over 120,000 miles on it and then the engine blew up.  It thought it was royalty from that day on.  I thought Mark was a bit nuts!  

Run Mark Run!

There was a Friendly’s restaurant a little over a mile from our first house.  One night the temperature was perfect for a walk and Mark and I set out after work for a stroll.  We were holding hands and laughing and enjoying ourselves quite nicely.  There was nobody happier!  Mark had a fabulous idea to go out to dinner while we were walking!  Friendly’s sounded like a perfect place to enjoy a meal and of course some ice cream too.  We waited for a table and finally settled in at our little booth.  The place was packed with people eating and people standing waiting for a table.  At dinner, our conversation and laughing and fun visit together continued.  We stayed a long time and I know people were wishing we would leave so they could have our table, but we didn’t want the time to end.  The waitress came over and asked if there was anything else she could get us for the third time and Mark finally said “no, thank you, just the check.”  The waitress put the check down and walked away.  All of a sudden, our little romantic visit was about to take a turn.  Mark reached behind him to get his wallet and he had a look of panic on his face.  He leaned in and whispered to me “I don’t have my wallet.” 

What?  Who doesn’t have their wallet when you’re a guy.  I thought men slept with that thing in their pocket all the time!  I have never, not ever, seen my father without his wallet!  Who is this guy?? 

I was hoping Mark was joking because he has a way of doing that, but he wasn’t.  I leaned in and whispered, “you have to go home and get it.”  And he said “ok, I will, you stay here and I will be right back!” 

Right back?  Mark’s feet turned out when he walked.  I have never seen him walk quickly or run except for the time my mother wanted to kill him for bringing me home so late. 

 I said, “You run!” through clenched teeth.  I was so embarrassed.

So I sat.  And waited and waited and waited. 

The waitress came over and asked if everything was ok.  I said, “he will be right back.”  And I ordered a soda.  And then I waited and waited.  I began to wonder if Mark forgot he had to come back to get me or if it was just a ploy on his part to leave me there and walk away.  I wasn’t getting happier, that’s for sure.

Finally, Mark showed up and had the sense to bring the getaway vehicle this time.  He pulled out the EXACT amount of money for the bill and my mouth dropped.  I said “I ordered a soda too while you were gone.”

And he said “well that’s just great because I only brought the $8.38 (or something like that) for our meal. 

My heart started to pound and I was so afraid.  The waitress came over and I blurted out the whole thing.  He forgot his wallet, went home and got the money, I ordered a soda, he didn’t bring enough, etc. etc. etc.  I begged her mercy and asked if we could go home and get more money.  Mark started to laugh like the funniest joke in the world was just told.  He pulled out a $20 bill and said, “I have enough money, I was just kidding.”    NOT FUNNY, Mark Searle!!  Not funny at all!!

The OCD Stalker!

Our first home was a duplex in Liverpool.  The house was blue, my favorite color!  The duplex ran side-to-side and we had our very own driveway!  At the time I was unaware of what square footage meant so I thought the space was perfect for us.  It was a whopping 650 square feet for the entire half of the house.  The entryway came in through the tiny kitchen.  When the door opened up, it hit the table and chairs that was our dining area.  It was a 2 x 3 foot folding table with folding chairs.  It had a tiny sink, an apartment sized refrigerator and a stove that was so little my cookware that I received for wedding showers would go in storage until we moved to a bigger place.  Not even a cookie sheet would fit in that oven, just a small 8 x 8 pan!  There was a 12” piece of countertop to work on.  The living room snuggly fit our new brown plaid couch, a loveseat and two end tables.  The bedroom had a full size bed, a tall chest and a dresser with no space to walk!  I still loved that place!  We bought our furniture at Raymour!  I am pretty sure that the entire living room set was less than $200.  We still have the dresser set that is being used in Mark’s bedroom today.  It’s pretty beat up, but it still does the job of holding clothes quite nicely!  The front of the house had an entryway that had access to both apartments.  We were told in very specific terms that the landlord was the only person to use the front entry so we didn’t use it.  The landlord was a stalker!  I’m not joking!  He was a crazy stalker!  I don’t think we knew anything about OCD in the 1970s, but this man wrote the book on it.  He was obsessive about that house.  One time Mark was outside washing and waxing the car and had come in for lunch.  The phone rang and we answered it from the phone on the wall because that’s where phones were in 1978.  All I heard were obscenities being shouted at me through the receiver as I barely spoke the word “hello” into it.  I handed the phone to Mark and listened while Mark and the landlord exchanged their creative language!  We knew the owner of the home drove past our apartment every morning and every afternoon and every evening because he told us he did.  Evidently, on this particular day, he noticed Mark left the hose sitting on the grass burning up the lawn for the 40 minutes it was outside!  The man pretty much offered to evict us immediately if Mark didn’t move it!  So, that started the Mark vs Landlord game!  I personally enjoyed avoiding conflict, Mark enjoyed creating misery for the OCD man.  Every opportunity Mark had, he would leave something on the lawn.  Sometimes it would be the tire to the car, ever-so-slightly pulled to the left or the right of the driveway and touching an inch of grass.  Sometimes it was a watering can.  Sometimes it was the trash can that he took to the curb placed on the lawn instead of the stone.  Yup!  Mark was having a blast and I was begging him to stop.  The line was drawn in the sand though one morning when Mark had gone to work and I was home on a paid holiday.  I was still sleeping so it must have been around 8:30 or 9:00 am.   I sensed someone in the room so I sleepily opened my eyes and sat up.  There was the creepy landlord standing at the foot of our bed and just staring at me.  I screamed and told him to get out.  He mumbled something about fixing the hot water heater in the closet in the hallway and he didn’t realize anyone was home.  I didn’t believe a word he said.   Once Mark found out, I spent the remaining days living there worried that Mark was going to take the guy out!  Although we had only lived there for about 8 months, Mark and I began the process of looking for another place.

Keep your eyes open!! Literally!

  It was a Sunday, in September of 1978.  We were driving home from our vacation through Pennsylvania.  The evening was late (because we spent 3 hours in Pizza Hut earlier that evening not getting our pizza!)   Mostly, though, it was particularly dark and so foggy that you couldn’t see anything past the windshield.  We were looking out at a sheet of cloud cover sitting over our little vehicle and the headlights were reflecting back and completely useless.  Both Mark and I had to work the next morning so we were determined to make it home that night.  I remember being very, very tired.  Mark was the only one that could drive the car because it was a stick shift and I had no idea about driving such things.  I felt bad for the guy because he was driving and driving and driving and I was dozing off and on.  You know when you’re really tired and trying to stay awake so your head does that bobbing thing?  Well that’s what I was doing.  I kept waking up and looking over at Mark and mumbling, “Are you ok?  Are you still awake?” And he would assure me he was fine and awake, go back to sleep.  We had about three hours left to drive home to Liverpool.  I finally fell into a very deep sleep.  I was a little bit dreaming and a little bit awake when my body became aware of being shaken around.  I could feel myself being jostled back and forth.  Slowly I opened my eyes and was suddenly aware of my surroundings.  Do you remember the scene in the Chevy Chase Movie, “Vacation,” when the camera pans to Audrey and Rusty (the children) sleeping in the back seat and then slowly moves to the front seat and Ellen (the wife) is out cold, and then, Clark (the driver) is sound asleep behind the wheel of the car as it is careening off an embankment?  Well, I woke up and the car was completely off the road and we were very quickly going through a field and over some underbrush and rubble.  I turned to look at Mark in a panic and he was completely sound asleep with his foot on the accelerator!!!!  I mean, his head was back, his mouth was open, and he was snoring!!!  I screamed a blood curdling scream and he woke up startled and said “What??”  He realized what I was screaming about and turned the car back toward the road.  We clumped back through the field, over the embankment and then onto the road.  We sat there in shock that we lived through that experience.  We decided to pull over at the next rest stop and take 15 or 20 minutes to have a little nap.  The adrenaline we had coursing through our veins for that little jaunt kept us awake for the next 30 minutes until we could pull over.  It was a very good lesson to learn that driving and sleeping are not good combinations!!  It did make us realize that little things like uncooked pizza pales in comparison to cars going off the road!!  

This is the day!! Be glad wouldya?

The day Mark went to the hospital started out like all the rest of our days.  We laughed at a sticker on his arm.  When I asked him what he wanted for breakfast, he said the same thing that he said every single morning for years "I'll have a couple of egg sandwiches."  We joked about all the craft projects he made Andrea work on the day earlier.  It was a great day.  So great, as a matter of fact, that I wrote on my facebook status February 17, 2013, "This is the day the Lord has made...what shall we do about it?"  The answer is in the bible:   "Rejoice and be glad in it."

When I wrote that in the morning, God knew that it was the day He had made and knew that it was the day Mark was going to leave this house and get ready for his home in heaven.  Since then, I have thought about those words I typed and  I wonder how in the world I can rejoice and be glad about that!  Why, of all days for me to post "that" verse, did I choose February 17?

On April 11, I received a devotional in the mail that I had ordered because a friend who lost her husband recommended it to me.  It is called "Jesus Calling"   April 11 was a Thursday and Mark passed away on a Thursday.  I was busy loading up some of his possessions to give away and crying again as the mail was delivered.  I unwillingly opened up the devotional to April 11 and I could hear the crack of the spine in the book as it opened for the first time.  Who really cares what this book says, I thought in my mind.  Nothing is going to help me get through this.

I stood there in awe of how God used a book, a day, and a verse from His Word to talk to me once again...

Here is what it said on April 11:
THIS IS THE DAY THAT I HAVE MADE, Rejoice and be glad in it.  Begin the day with open hands of faith, ready to receive all that I am pouring into this brief portion of your life.  Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances.  The best way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them.  This act of faith frees you from resentment and frees Me to work My ways into the situation so that good emerges from it.
To find Joy in this day, you must live within it's boundaries.  I knew what I was doing when I divided time into 24 hour segments.  I understand human frailty, and I know that you can bear the weight of only one day at a time.  Do not worry about tomorrow or get stuck in the past.  There is abundant Life in My Presence today.

There is nothing more I can add to this... it's just beyond my explanation which is what God does all the time...again and again and again!

Mad for Pizza !!

On the way home from Maryland, we stopped at another Pizza Hut.  Really, when I think about it, we have eaten way more than our fair share of pizza over the years.  As I am remembering stories, almost all of them involve pizza!  The stories that have been resurfacing over the past 6 weeks have made me see that I didn’t really like much of anything that Mark liked!  How funny is that?  He loved history, battlefields, mini and regular golfing, nature, bugs, camping, hunting, noisy super fast cars, loud rock music, scary and shooting-gun movies.  I love things that happen today, (and sometimes yesterday), but not long-ago.   I love walking on a path that has no bugs.  I like Disney-type movies and music that makes you dance and sing, like commercial jingles!  I only like to ride in cars that can’t go over 75 mph and are top safety rated.  I don’t understand technology and would rather read a book with paper than one on an ipad.  Pizza is ok as long as you have it only twice a month.  And golfing makes no sense at all to me!  So, Mark and I, despite the odds, seemed to figure all this out and make it work with the one thing that we had in common!  Genuine love and admiration for each other! 

Anyway, so here we are, on the way home from our honeymoon and we were both really tired.  We stopped at Pizza Hut to have Mark’s usual supreme pizza.  Back 35 years ago, there weren’t those conveyor belt ovens that they have now.  The pizza person made the pizza and put it in the oven and when it was done, they brought it to your table.  We ordered and waited.   We waited and waited and waited.  Everyone around us came and left and our pizza still didn’t come.  We had a long drive home and Mark was tired and getting quite unhappy.  Finally, they brought our pizza to the table and apologized saying the order got lost and when they realized it, they quickly threw a pizza together for us.

Mark took one bite of the pizza and the dough was not cooked.  The cheese was not melted.  It literally looked like they took the pizza dough, put it on a pan and then spread sauce, cheese and toppings on it and brought it to the table uncooked.  It was really gross.  I was about to see the wrath of Mark.  Honestly, over the years, he lost his temper only a few times but had a way of making everyone around him think that he could hurt you if you didn’t do what he wanted.  Therefore, he didn’t need to lose his temper often.  The result was the same from just a look!  The waitress apologized and quickly took the pizza away and offered to make us another one.  We waited another 30 minutes while the remaining patrons in the restaurant were fed and left.  Finally, our waitress starts coming our way with a new, steaming hot pie and smiles and waves at us while she is walking over.  Just as she let go of the bottom of the pizza pan with one hand to wave at us, she tripped and the pizza flew up in the air and spun around, landing completely on the floor face down.  There was a gasp that went through the entire restaurant.  I think it was mostly because of Mark’s commentary of words that should not be said in public!  I felt so sorry for that poor little waitress.  Mark was unimpressed and very upset.  He told the manager that we were not interested in another pizza (but not exactly that politely) and we packed up and left the restaurant hungry, angry and tired.  As Mark and I left the building, he was about 50 feet ahead of me.  I thanked the waitress and told her that I was sorry and quickly handed her a tip.  Poor little thing probably cried to sleep that night.   I think we stopped at McDonalds for a quick bite to eat before driving home.   It was a very quiet ride for many, many miles as we began our married life together realizing we were different in more ways than just movie preferences.  

Tank you very much

After a long day at the Gettysburg battlefield, we spent the afternoon having some lunch and shopping.  I know Mark wanted to stay at the field longer, but I was not all that pleasant so he was trying to sacrifice.  The next morning we headed down to Virginia Beach and we spent three days there.  It was beautiful.  I had never been to the ocean before and I couldn’t believe how massive it was!  The entire time we were there, it rained off and on.  It was windy but balmy and the air was salty!!  The sandy surface was covered with sea-life that had washed ashore.  I felt so bad for their little flip-flopping bodies that needed to breathe under water, until I stepped on a creepy jellyfish with my bare feet.  After that, it was all over and I just wanted to go walk the boardwalk and shop.  We bought a bunch of souvenir items for all my siblings and parents, etc.  Mark was getting a first glimpse of what it was going to be like to go Christmas shopping for such a large assortment of people.  We ate and walked for miles each day.  On the way home, we stopped in Maryland.  Why Maryland?  Because in Aberdeen Maryland, there is an actual Tank Museum!  Yes, that’s what I just typed…”Tank Museum.”  Oh, wait, I am not giving you the correct information.  It’s actually the “Aberdeen Proving Ground.”  According to their website (which I wish I had access to way back then), there is 300,000 square feet with tanks, equipment and weaponry!  Um, yeah!  Visualize the trip to the Gettysburg battlefield, only this time it is raining, cold and we are outside climbing on tanks.  He was able to sit in the cockpit of one of the tanks and I wish I had a picture of that.  He was checking out the dials and sitting there as if it was where he belonged.  He was in his glory!  Just a week before Mark met me in December of 1976, he had met with an army recruiter and was going to enlist if they allowed him to drive a tank!  That was his dream job!  Then he met me and told the Army recruiter that he changed his mind.  God had a different plan because Mark didn’t drive a tank and stayed here with me.  I was very happy I didn’t have to wonder what Mark was doing on a battlefield within a tank!  Mark and I always appreciated our military and their sacrifices.  When he died, he asked for donations to go to the USO, which provides entertainment for the troops that are away from home.  He always longed to go to Germany and several places overseas to put his historical mind in perspective by seeing all the places he read about.  I still don’t care for history, but lately I am looking back at our history we had together and realizing how important remembering yesterdays can be!      

Can we Gettys-burger please?

Can we Gettys-burger please?? – The first full day of our married life together, Mark and I spent driving to Gettysburg.  The second morning, we were ready for battle!  Mark set the alarm at the crack of dawn to tour the battlefield while the dew was still fresh on the plain.  We had a continental breakfast in the hotel and hurried off to the Gettysburg museum for our day of history fun!  Woo hoo!  The girl behind the counter told us that there were a couple options.  We could join a group tour and travel around by bus to see the battlefield with a narrator, or we could take a self-guided tour with a cassette tape and listen to the narration in our own vehicle.  Both tours were approximately 45 minutes long.  I opted for the tour bus with the fun people that could laugh and chatter with us along the way.   Mark decided his own “self-guided” tour would be better.  And so we set out.  I snuggled in beside him on this crisp and chilly September morning and he drove.  He put the cassette tape in the portable tape player they gave us.  We began to slowly, and I mean SLOWLY drive.  The car was a stick-shift and I’m pretty sure he never got out of first gear.  We listened to 60 seconds on the cassette.  It was something like, “Welcome to the Gettysburg tour.”  And then Mark stopped the cassette and the car and got out.  He looked right and then he looked left.  He stood there for a long time.  I wondered if he was already lost, but it was pretty simple to drive straight on this boring road surrounded by grass and trees, so that couldn’t be the problem.  He knew exactly where he was.  He just wanted to get out of the car and breathe in the sense of the Gettysburg battle or something.  I also got out of the car and took his arm and leaned in.  I smiled up at his beautiful face and said, “it’s really cold out here.”  (hint, hint!) 

Mark came back to the car and I am serious when I tell you, the entire tour with Mark driving took over FOUR hours!!  He literally drove 10 feet and would get out.  You know those plaques that are all around historical sites with tons and tons of words on them and nobody ever reads them??  Well, Mark read them.  All of them!  He would stop the cassette, get out of the car, and read the information.  Then he would walk in the middle of this field and just stand there for what seemed like forever.  He would point at a tree or ridgeline and say “can’t you just see the troops marching over that tree line?”  And then he would stand there and stare longer.  I wondered if he was getting delusional because I didn’t see any of that stuff.  He was engrossed.  He talked about the battle, the weapons, the uniforms, the weather, the food, the commanders, the infantry, the boots and the equipment.  He talked about the strategy and what worked and what could have worked better.  I continued to get out of the car with him at every stop for the first 20 stops.  The rest of the 25 or 30 stops, I let him get out on his own.  By now it was very warm and I had the window rolled down in our non-air-conditioned vehicle with my feet sticking out of the window.  I was hot, bored and hungry.  He was in battle fatigues in his mind and not allowing himself to think of his wife back home.  He was certifiably nuts and he was all mine!  As the years went by, I realized that his love of history and the zillions of hours he spent researching battles and wars and ships and aircraft carriers and on and on and on, would be the one thing he held onto after his disability took hold.  His last day here was spent working with Andrea on a game for some Russian and French army.  He was an Armchair General, but he could have been Secretary of Defense for our country with all that knowledge in that big ol’ round head of his!  I miss you Mark Searle and all your quirky behavior! 

The honeymooners

The honeymooners!  - Mark always loved history.  It was the only subject in school I barely passed.  Yuk, I say for things that happened before today!  When we went on our honeymoon, I thought Gettysburg, PA sounded like a fun place to go because our hotel had 25 stores right I the lobby area!  And who doesn’t love to shop?  I also had grown up going to PA every summer when I was younger and loved that state.  I had very fond memories of Pennsylvania and my cousins and all the fun places to go and visit, eat and shop.  Mark wanted to go to Gettysburg because he wanted to tour the battlefield.  I thought, ok, that sounds like a nice little walk around a park.  Let’s go there for our honeymoon trip!  Well, we drove our little red Chevy Chevette to Pennsylvania and, yes, we ate at Pizza Hut for lunch on the way there.  That night, we checked into our hotel and I was so excited because it was beautiful!  The hotel was all lit up and fancy.  You could see the cute little shops all along the walkway outside the hotel.  We had dinner that night in the fancy schmancy hotel restaurant.  We had a male waiter; and we were his only customer.  He literally stood behind our table with the water jug and a towel and if we took one sip of the water, he stepped forward one step and poured one sip of water back in our glasses.  Mark was getting annoyed.  My “husband,” (and I quote that because how fun is it to call someone a “husband” when you never had one of those before) was looking over the menu and I noticed he was fidgeting.  Over the years, I would learn the secret to choosing a restaurant for us to enjoy.  If it didn’t have pizza, pasta or hamburgers, we probably shouldn’t go there!  This restaurant did not have any of those things.  I didn’t want to break our waiter’s heart by telling him that his only chance for a tip that night was packing it up and leaving, so we stayed.  Mark ordered crab-stuffed shrimp.  I think I ordered the prime rib (very excited!).  The meal came and Mark had 4 very large shrimp on his plate that were mounded high and round with crabmeat.  Our waiter (I will call him Ralph) hovered and watched as I took my first bite!  DELICIOUS!  Mark scraped off a small portion of the crab with his fork and began to taste it.  He then explained to me in a whisper that once in geography class he saw some tribal group digging up grubs and pulling them out of the ground and eating them.  Ever since then, he couldn’t eat shrimp because it reminded him of grubs.  So, Mark ate a little bit of the crabmeat, pulled the lettuce up from the garnish and hid the giant piece of shrimp and crab under the lettuce on his plate!  He proceeded to do that for all 4 pieces of his very expensive shrimp dinner.  Surprisingly Ralph didn’t seem to notice.  We didn’t bother to order dessert. Mark just wanted to run outta there before his hidden shrimp was discovered.  We went to the desk in the lobby of the hotel and Mark asked if he could order pizza for delivery and we did!  

I Do, I Do, I Do!!! A Wedding story!

We were married on September 1, 1978 on a Friday night at 7:00 pm at St. James Church in Syracuse.  My brother was married the same year only in March.  We both had our receptions at a restaurant in Liverpool.  I am pretty sure it was $3.50 per person for the buffet!  Our invitation said “A fresh new day…and it is ours.  A day of happy beginnings when we, Suzanne Lynne Shattell and Mark Edward Searle pledge our love as one.”  I thought the invitations were beautiful.  My mother was upset that we didn’t put the parents names, but Mark didn’t want to put his parents on the card and I thought it would insulting to his family to only list mine, so we skipped it altogether.  Anyway, I wore my mother’s dress.  It was a little bit short because my mom is only 5’1” at the time if she stood up really, really, really tall.  I am 5’5”.  But the dress fit perfectly without any alterations and I just bought really low shoes.  The dress was satin ivory.  Stunningly gorgeous, I thought.  Mark wore an ivory tux because he said he always wanted to wear a white tux for some odd reason.  The girl’s dresses were hand made.  They were different shades of blue in horrible polyester fabric.  The guys all wore light blue tuxes because back then, you matched the tux with the color of the girls dress.  My father, 35 years later, still hasn’t forgiven me for making him wear that baby blue tux!  Seriously, at least twice a month he mentions it!  We took Jordan almonds and nylon netting and made the favors with little ribbons.  My mom and I made cookies for days and days before the wedding.  It was one of those “budget” weddings that I thought was simply beautiful in every way. 

We chose a Friday night because my dad and my three brothers all worked at my father’s business, including Saturday and we didn’t want them to have to lose business to close the plant for a Saturday morning.  I don’t remember the ceremony itself very much except my father’s arm on mine as we started to walk up the aisle.  I remember seeing Mark’s face as he saw me for the first time coming toward him as my dad whispered in my ear, “are you sure you don’t want to turn around?  It’s still not too late.”  

“I’m sure, I replied.”  Mark refused to take communion telling the priest that he was allergic!  It’s funny as I am typing this, now, but at the time, I was really concerned we were going to be struck with lightening!  He lied in church on our wedding because he said those dry communion wafers made him gag!  (Oh my!)  My sister Lisa told me that when we were kneeling at the altar, my feet were bouncing up and down and back and forth like a jig during the entire thing and she said it was hard to pay attention when I was so fidgety.  It was Labor Day weekend.  I had convinced Mark to invite his dad to the wedding because up until this point in our relationship, I had not met his dad and Mark hadn’t spoken to him in years and years.  I was surprised at how slight his dad looked compared to Mark.  He was just a “normal” sized man with a buzz cut and thick glasses.  He didn’t look intimidating at all.  Mark literally spent the entire reception leaning on the bar talking to his father.  I wanted him to come around with me and talk to the other guests, but his dad was weeping with joy that Mark was communicating with him again so I let it go.  I honestly think Mark extended the conversation as long as he could so he didn’t have to dance with me or anyone else on that day.  But that didn’t stop me.  I had a blast.  My sisters and friends and I were dancing fools.  It was so much fun!  Sometimes I think we should just plan a reception just so we can have friends come with good food and dancing and laughter for no reason at all.  I’m guessing the $3.50 a plate buffet is a thing of the past though!

It's me or the car!

Take a guess at what the minimum wage was in 1977.  Go ahead; take a guess.  Ok, I will tell you.  It was $2.30 an hour.  That means a person making minimum wage, working a 40-hour week would make $92 per week before taxes.  That is what Mark Searle was making in 1977 while we were engaged.  He was working as a parts runner for Bresee Chevrolet, as I mentioned in an earlier story.  He was still driving his loud, leaking, rumbling neon green dodge challenger at the time.  One day, he pulled into my parent’s driveway and was grinning like a Cheshire cat.  He had a brochure of some kind tucked in his pocket.  It was a beautiful day and we were sitting out on the carport at my parent’s house visiting.  He announced, “want to see what I bought today?” And I said, “sure,” thinking that it was going to be something exciting for both of us.  He hands me a “1977 Camaro” booklet with a shiny new car on the cover.  I stared at it for a minute, a bit stunned.  He showed me the color he chose which was a very dark forest green, the fancy gold rims he selected, and the upgraded stereo system.  He was beside himself with joy.  I asked him how much this fabulous idea was going to cost and he proclaimed, “$5,200, but I only had to put $500 down on it!”  I couldn’t believe it.  But oh, it was true.  I was about to find out that my husband-to-be liked to buy expensive, shiny and elite things.  I stood up and of course, because that’s how I handle all things, I cried.  I demanded that he cancel the order immediately.  He wasn’t even making $4700 a YEAR and he bought a car for more than that.  How in the world were we going to afford something that expensive?  I was livid.  I told him to get the $500 back and cancel the order.  Well, he said he didn’t want to.  So, I took my ring off my finger and through tears handed it back to him and said.  “It’s me or the car.”  And he got up, left the ring on the little table in the carport and walked to his car and drove away.  I went over to Dawn Dusenbury’s house, a single woman living next door to my mom and dad.  Dawn was the best counselor in the world.  She listened as this 19-year old girl cried and cried and cried and screamed and yelled and spewed the selfishness of it all.  Then we had hot chocolate and I went home, my face streaked with tears and my nose all red.  Mark didn’t call me that night at his usual 7:00 pm, and I was ok with that.  The next day, I did not hear from him either.  I was stuck between being broken-hearted and angry.  The next day, as I was leaving work, he was sitting outside of the building in his green car.  I was so relieved to see him.  He said he tried to get the deposit back, but the car had already been ordered so he was unable to do that.  We talked about having a better way of communicating about spending “our” money and agreeing that we needed a different car, but probably not one that was so expensive.  He was able to take the $500 deposit and put it toward our little red Chevy Chevette that cost $2200 brand spanking new!  It had no air conditioning and a 1.4 liter engine that Mark says was smaller than most motorcycles.  It had absolutely no personality at all and you had to push it to go up a hill, but we could afford it and I loved that little car.  Mark chose me, and the little red Chevette.   I loved that choice! 

And... the end of hunting we will go...

I couldn’t contain the screams and hysteria any longer.  I started to run around in circles and sob uncontrollably.  “Do you remember Douglas Legg?” I shouted at his dad.  “He went for a walk in these very same woods a few years ago and they still haven’t found his body.”  I continued to scream and shout.  Who needed a rifle to help Mark locate us, I was yelling loud enough for the entire forest to hear me.  I was sure that Mark broke his leg and was stuck, stranded in a ditch somewhere and we weren’t ever going to find him.  Then my mind and commentary wandered to other things, like animals that attacked him and being so disoriented that he couldn’t find his way out.  Mark’s dad tried to reassure me that Mark was a wonderful camper and he would be fine.  I stopped sobbing for a minute and nodded my head in agreement.  I said “well, at least he has his compass so he will find his way out eventually.”  At that point, Mark’s father reached into the pocket of his coveralls and brought forth a chain with a compass on the end of it.  He forlornly announced that he asked Mark for the compass earlier and Mark gave it to him.  Well, ok, now, I needed to be committed to one of those places for people who are deranged.  I was so hysterical that Homer actually yelled at me.  LOUD!  He shouted and said “go back down the path and head back to the cabin!  Right NOW!”  I thought, “are you crazy?  I’m not going back down that pathway toward the cabin by myself!!!  I’m dyslexic and directionally challenged.  I can’t even tell my right hand from my left hand and you want me to be following a path back to the camp?  No way Jose!  It was getting dark.  At this point, Mark had been gone for over 4 hours.  I suggested we go back to the cabin and drive to the police station and get a helicopter.  Over and over I chanted the words, “we need a helicopter.”  Mark’s father was obviously losing his patience with me.  He put one hand on each shoulder and shook me.  He said “STOP IT RIGHT NOW. You aren’t solving anything by acting like this.”  So I stopped, mostly because I was afraid his dad would leave me there and I would be eaten alive by bugs and bears and lions and leeches or something.  The sun had almost set completely.  In the middle of the forest without streetlights, it gets very, very dark.  Of course, Homer didn’t have a flashlight with him because we were only going to hunt for a few hours during the day.  So he suggested we walk back to the camp and hopefully Mark would show up.  “SHOW UP??”  “HOPEFULLY SHOW UP?”   We started walking back down the pathway.  I cannot describe how scared I was.  We went about a half-mile and all of a sudden through the brush and the trees was the glimmer of headlights.  It was surreal for a minute because a car shouldn’t be driving in the woods.  But there it was, our tiny little red Chevy Chevette plowing through the underbrush and swerving in and out of trees.  It stopped and out jumped Mark.  He was laughing!!!!  YES!!! He was LAUGHING!!!  I was not!  He asked if we needed a lift anywhere.  Isn’t he just the funniest guy ever!  He said he went too far over the ridge and ended up in a different part of the woods that he was unfamiliar with.  With the sun at his back, he kept going in the same direction until he reached a road.  He realized he was over 5 miles from camp at that time and just walked back.  That’s it.  He explained it like it was a fun little jaunt for an afternoon.  Can I just mention that it was the last time I EVER went hunting with Mark again!