How we came to be married, 26 years ago...

Bill and I were married 26 years ago today. I actually have no memory at all of the ceremony, only of the events leading up to it, the stories we've told about it over the years and the pictures afterwards to remind me that it all really happened. As they say, it's the marriage that's important, not the wedding itself, right?

We had planned to get married somewhere in Nevada, on our way down from Alaska and on our way to my parents' house, just in time for Thanksgiving. We had been living at my brother's house in North Pole (near Fairbanks) for about 3 months, working where we could and helping him while he was in a full-leg cast from a motorcycle accident. But then the weather got cold, the Air Force was going to rotate Jerry out of Alaska in January, Bill's landscaping job came to an end (due to weather), and my bartending job was also about to come to a screeching halt--I was four months pregnant with Juli, and my bosses warned me that they wouldn't let me work after I began to "show."

We had come to Alaska in late summer, after quitting our jobs in Louisiana and driving my van, towing Bill's Harley, up to his parents' house in Illinois. There, Bill built me a Triumph motorcycle out of old parts, and we roared off in the rain in early August, headed for Sturgis, SD for Motorcycle Week. From there we rode to Glacier National Park MT, then up through Alberta and British Columbia to Prince George, where we camped for a week, waiting for the Alaska State Ferry to arrive in Prince Rupert on the coast.

Somewhere along the way, I began to suspect I was pregnant. In Prince Rupert, I finally purchased a kit (fairly new at the time) and in our campsite, I mixed the test tubes on a tree stump. I was thrilled with the positive results, Bill was less sure about how he felt. We caught the ferry and spent 3 or 4 days traveling up the Inland Passage. At Haines, we rode our bikes off the ferry, and entered Alaska, riding through truly wild country of tundra and sky. It started snowing the afternoon we got to North Pole, AK, a few days later.

We bought a 1968 Ford truck for $900 when we could no longer ride the bikes because of weather, and got jobs. But when it became apparent that we either would have to leave in November or be stranded in Alaska, in winter--pregnant, unemployed and without a place to live--we began to make a plan. One night, after I got off work at the Moose Creek Lodge, we sat at the bar and hammered out the parameters of how our life might be as a married couple.

"Okay," I said, "but I'm not changing my name," I remember saying. "Okay," Bill said, "but I'm not giving up motorcycles." And so on, negotiating for many hours. Later, after driving home, bundled in parkas and dripping with snow in Jerry's garage, Bill sat me down on the steps and knelt on the cold, concrete floor in front of me and asked me to marry him. I said "yes," of course.

We packed our belongings and put our motorcycles under the truck's camper shell, and headed for the Alaskan Highway. We drove the first day to Anchorage, because my former boss had promised to pay me $750 for an article and photos on that city's real estate market. We had $1500 in our pockets and 4,000 miles to travel.

We got caught in a blizzard leaving Anchorage, and had to be towed out of the ditch (my bad). We spent that night in Palmer, AK, marveling at the miracle of baby's first movements within me for the first time. The next day found us driving towards Tok at sunset, when the rear axle suddenly fell out of the left wheel, the friction heat setting the brake fluid and left rear tire on fire. We were towed to a motel, but it looked like our journey was over.

Then the manager of the hotel told Bill about a Native village about 6 miles into the backcountry, and took Bill there by snowmobile. There, kicking around in the snow, a Ford rear axle was found, and Bill spent the next day putting that in and putting on the spare tire. In the morning, we reached Tok, AK and a decision point: Turn left and go back to Fairbanks or turn right and start down the AK Highway? We flipped a coin and headed south.

We made it to Yellowknife in the Yukon territory the next day. Everything was going according to plan until the following day, when I came around a curve, hit a patch of ice, and rolled the truck completely over in a spectacular 360 off the road. The camper shell was smashed, our stuff was all over the landscape, and I had sliced the top of my scalp on the overhead light. It was 30 below zero outside, and the blood was freezing on my face. A passing car took me into Teslin where, the driver told me, there was an Royal Canadian Mounted Police nurse who could stitch up my head. Bill stayed behind to gather up the motorcycles and belongings (there's a strict littering law in Canada), and wait for the tow truck--again.

We sat miserably in the motel bar that night, as people came by asking to cannibalize parts from the camper shell (window latches, scrap aluminum), and admire the 12 stitches on the top of my head. In the morning, stiff and sore from the accident, we piled everything back in the truck and headed south again. Luckily, it was a sunny day, and we actually got to see black asphalt road for the first time. Just about the time we were laughing again about our misbegotten trip, the truck started swaying and swooping from side to side on the highway. Not black asphalt after all--instead it was a clear sheet of ice on top that fooled us. Bill was driving this time and managed to keep the truck on the road a lot longer than I had the day before, but the end result was the same--another 360 degree rollover.

When I opened my eyes, I had blinked my contact lenses right out during the crash. My first words were, "I can't see," and Bill thought that meant a I had a brain injury. We were both physically fine, though.

But the damage to the truck was considerable. The windshield was a craze of cracks. The steering wheel was cocked towards Bill's left shoulder. The body was a mass of dents. Once again, passing travelers helped us, pulling us back onto the road, loaning us some loose-fitting tire chains. I had spare contacts in little bottles of saline solution, but they were frozen solid. A kind, retired couple thawed them out in their motor home, using their tea water. Bill decided there was something wrong with the frame of the truck--one of the I-beams was bent, making everything shimmy and drift. We spent the next 14 hours limping along the highway at slow speeds, trying to get up enough momentum to make it over the grades when they came, and sometimes sliding backwards downhill and having to do it all over again.

The sheer isolation of the frozen north was both frightening and astounding. Imagine driving hundreds and hundreds of miles, seeing nothing but open country--no gas stations, no railroad tracks, no telephone poles--nothing but breathtaking scenery. Occasionally, we might see a red fox running across the snow, or a moose ambling in the distance, but very few signs of any human existence.

We finally, blessedly, made it to the lodge at Lower Liard. For the next 5 days, we were snowed in, spending the last of our dwindling money on lodging and food. Thankfully, we were safe, sheltered and warm. But I had finally reached my emotional limit, and I was truly scared now. I was all for pushing the truck in the river that ran by the lodge, and hitching a ride with any trucker headed south. Bill surprised me by getting stubborn. His plan was to drive 60 miles to Fort Nelson, where there was rumored to be a man with a chain hoist, who could straighten the truck's I-beam so we could continue on. He turned out to be the tenacious and courageous one, while I surrendered to pre-motherhood protectiveness and self-preservation.

We did what would become our pattern together--he did what he felt he needed to do, and I did what I wanted to do. We sold my Triumph to the Anglophile bartender for $200. I called my parents and asked for help. The next day, I took our packed boxes of clothes and belongings, and boarded a bus for Dawson City. It was a tearful goodbye. I was afraid I would never see my future husband and father of my child alive again. The bus trip took 24 hours, and coming into the city was a 10-mile long stretch where all I could see along the highway was the world's biggest junkyard of wrecked cars. We were obviously not alone in our folly.

There in Dawson, our friend Dave had wired money via Western Union. I left it in the care of the town's answering service for Bill to pick up, if he ever made it that far. Then I got on a plane to Vancouver, spent the night at the airport Hilton, and flew to LA the next day, thanks to my parents.

Stubborn Bill's saga began when he put me on the bus. He babied the truck to Fort Nelson that afternoon and got the frame straightened. He put on his motorcycle helmet, unsnapped his seat belt, and kept the driver's door open (in case he had to bail out at some point), and started down the rest of the Alaskan Highway. He did eventually get to Dawson, collected the cash, and then turned south again onto the snowy and treacherous MacKenzie Highway towards Vancouver. A week later, he crossed the border into Washington.

He sold the battered truck in Salem, Oregon to a scrap dealer for $150. Then he got on his bike with his bedroll and came down the coast in the biggest rainstorm the Pacific Northwest had seen in twenty years.

We didn't have cell phones in those days, but he called (collect) whenever he could find a payphone. Some time around midnight on December 2, 1982, he rode up to my parents' house and I was sitting on the curb outside, waiting for him.

On Friday, we spent our last $23 on a marriage license. The minister at the church where I had been baptized didn't know us, but was willing to talk to us and marry us for no fee, as long as the wedding included less than 12 people, the church was available, and we filled out some compatibility questionnaires. Strangely, he never told us the results of that counseling...we've often wondered about that!

My girlfriends bought me a dress. Dave provided the flowers. We were married on Monday night; a simple, traditional (I think) ceremony, but without the rings we couldn't afford. My mom and dad, grandparents and brother (who was in LA by then, consulting about bone-grafts for his leg) were there; Greg Herder stood up with Bill, and Dave was my "Man of Honor," friends Janet and Donna rounded out the group. We had celebratory cake and champagne at my parents' home afterward.

Twenty-six years later, I cannot help but marvel at how naive, how foolish, how incredibly stupid we were. And yet, how right we turned out to be for each other.