I thought of a couple of more stories to share.
Back in January 2001, Jack and I spent a cold weekend in January in Washington, D.C. and watched the Presidential Inauguration of George W. Bush. We also saw the parade and thanks to little brother Bill, were able to attend a few of the Inaugural balls (unfortunately through all this no one taught us how to spell inauguration.) We watched George and Laura dance and tried to get a peak at the Bush twins - no luck. At the second party we went to though we did meet Bo Derek and Chris Matthews of Hardball (does that mean he used to be a Republican?). Pretty cool. Hard to believe that was eight years ago. It was quite an experience!
Here's one for you! Jack and I got married in 1995 only two months after I graduated from BSC. We honeymooned for a week and returned to Mobile on a Sunday to load up my things and move to Tuscaloosa. We rented a yellow Ryder truck to haul everything (which was not much) to our first little apartment. I don't know if you recall what was going on in the world around this time, but the Oklahoma City bombing had recently occurred and the authorities were searching for a young man named Timothy McVeigh who had been driving none other than a yellow Ryder truck.
Jack and I pulled into Ttown and of course had to find a place to eat. (certainly you didn't think I was going to cook?!) So here we come hauling up to the Cypress Inn in our yellow Ryder truck and out steps skinny Jack with his military style haircut - do you see where I am going with this? Just suffice it to say that we got more than a few suspicious glances.
Well the next morning Jack had to drive me to my first day of work in the Ryder truck (I can't remember how we ever got our cars up there). Following my graduation from BSC my first job was as a receptionist at a law firm making $7.00 an hour - don't you know my daddy was proud!
The first day of answering phones was going okay when my speech began to slur and one side of my face began to droop. By the time Jack brought me lunch I looked like ... well let's just say he was rethinking his marriage proposal! So here I am 23 years old, first day of work, in a new town and I think I am having some kind of facial stroke. I talk to my new bosses, whose names I could not even remember yet, and they sent me to a dentist in town. He decided that I had some kind of lock jaw from snorkeling and plane travel - whatever. He took the longest needle I have ever seen and injected cortizone into my cheekbone. About that time the phone rang at the doctor's office - this was before everyone called on cell phones - and it was little brother Bill telling me that Jack's dad had had a heart attack and they did not know what was going to happen. So when Jack walked in the doctor's office to check on his deformed new bride, I had to drop the bomb about his dad! Talk about racking up the stress points! As soon as the doctor was through puncturing my jaw, we packed up and headed to Dothan to check on Mr. Smith - by this time somehow we had gotten rid of the Ryder truck!
It turned out that Mr. Smith could go home from Dothan in a few days and he reported to UAB later in the week to have a pig valve replacement. Everything worked out fine, thank God!
Let me just tell you it was an interesting second week of marriage.
I wonder what it would be like if we could go back and do it again?
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