Ann Asks: How you asked Mom to marry you

This one is embarrassing and painful to tell. I was 23 years old. Please remember that throughout the story; I was 23 and didn’t know any better. I was immature. The decision to marry Mom (Jean) isn’t the issue. It was a good decision. How I proposed is the issue.

From June 1974 through February 1975 I worked as the sole computer programmer and de facto director of the computer operations for Frank N. Magid Associates in Marion, Iowa.  At that time the firm was engaged in marketing research and I was writing a computer system for statistical analysis. What Microsoft Excel Pivot-tables can do in seconds took me almost a year to program in 1974.

During this time Jean was teaching math at Anamosa High School in Anamosa, Iowa. Jean had a second floor apartment in a house in Anamosa. I had an apartment in Marion I shared with my Coe College running buddy Mark Robertson. We continued to date making frequent trips (30 minute drive) back and forth to see each other on weekends.

In March of 1975 I took the job as Assistant Registrar at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I had a salary of $8,400 per year. My primary assignment was computer operations, all of which is avoiding the embarrassing part of the story.

I was 23 years old and had never been away from home. Yes, I went to college and lived in the dorms, but I was never more than 2 miles from home. Yes, I graduated and got a job and an apartment in Marion, Iowa, but I was still only about 5 miles from home. I really wanted to prove to myself that I could live by myself independently. That was my thinking at the time. So I took the job in Atlanta. It was selfish of me. I am sure I hurt Jean’s feelings and totally confused my parents. My dad kept asking me, “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” I said I did, but I now know that I didn’t.

Jean and I sent letters back and forth between Anamosa and Atlanta. We also recorded messages on cassette tapes which we mailed back and forth. Occasionally these got crushed by the United States Postal Service. Phone calls were rare as long distance charges in those days were quite expensive.

Jean spent a fair number of weekends at my parent’s house in Cedar Rapids as they had become good friends. I spent my weekends reading science fiction books and being lonely in my Stone Mountain apartment. After six months alone in Atlanta I declared myself thoroughly independent, but totally miserable.

So I finally got up the guts to ask Jean to marry me one weekend in August, but realized she was visiting her sister in Iowa City. I didn’t have enough money to fly to Iowa to ask her in person, and driving 18 hours each way didn’t seem reasonable either. Note well that some segments of the interstate road system were not yet complete. So I tracked down Rachel’s phone number and called her. I was 23, okay? Keep remembering that.

I got Jean on the phone and tried to make a series of statements that were so obvious and true that the only logical conclusion would be that we should get married. I didn’t want “No” for an answer. I wanted her to see that we were right for each other and that she simply must say “Yes”.

It was too much like a mathematical theorem that didn't make sense, and it wasn’t making any sense to Jean as I built up to the final conclusion. Jean was listening to my sales pitch and thinking that I was breaking up with her, and the whole time I was thinking I was making a good argument for marriage. So when I finally concluded with “Will you marry me?” Jean was confused and shocked. There was this long silence on the phone and I was scared that she was going to say “No”. So eventually I filled the silence with “If you’d like some time to think about it that would be okay.”

I guess the correct approach was “I love you. Will you marry me?”, but I didn’t think that was a compelling argument. I thought that if my only asset was love, then I was a pretty poor candidate for a partner in life. Oh well, hindsight is pretty good from here. John Lennon says, “All You Need Is Love”. I thought that was a given, like in math, and didn’t need to be said, but clearly I should have stated it up front.

After waiting an eternity for an answer on the phone, long distance no less, Jean eventually said yes, but it didn’t come out clearly amongst the sobbing and crying, so I asked her to say it again just to be sure.

Over the next 10 months we only saw each other a few times, like at Christmas and spring break. We got married on June 26, 1976. Nowadays our longest separations are when she leaves me to go see our grandchildren!


That’s my version of events.


Tom
June 2011