Bombeck - A Marriage Made in Heaven, or Too Tired for an Affair

1949

The Wedding

It would have been a wonderful weddinghad it not been mine.

The sun was shining. Relatives were speaking to one another. The bridegroom showed up. At the altar waiting for me was a man I met in high school who served in Korea in World War II and looked great in a uniform. Ernest Borgnine looked great in a uniform!

Bill was a stranger. I had only known him for seven years. People had longer conversations with waiters over the "specials" than that.

What could my parents be thinking of with all that drivel about "You're not getting any younger"? We had no car, no place to live, no furniture and no sterling silver pattern. I wondered if you were legally married if you didn't have a sterling silver pattern. Bill didn't even have a job. He had a year left of college. No doubt about it. My parents were making a big mistake!

Nothing was working out right. As a child I had always fantasized about having a wedding that was above our means. And here I was in an oversized bridal gown that I bought on sale, a cousin snapping our wedding album pictures with a box camera, and my mom smelling like baked ham which she cooked all morning to transport to the wedding reception.

And what was going to happen to my dreams? I had big plans for me. On my graduation from college, I was going to New York and work for The New York Times as a foreign correspondent. If that fell through, I had a firm offer to write obituaries for the Dayton Herald in Ohio.

Now, here I was two weeks after my graduation walking down the aisle of the Church of the Resurrection to say "I do" without so much as a job description.

I met the gaze of my bridegroom who was waiting for me at the altar and poverty and unfulfilled dreams seemed unimportant. What was the matter with me? I loved the man. We were the perfect couple. We had everything in common. Well, the things that really mattered.

We both chewed only a half stick of gum and saved the other half. (How many people did that!) We both loved Robert Benchley's humor, hated communism, and what WAS the other thing? Oh yes, we both loathed going to the dentist. A lot of couples we knew started off their marriages with less.

As I knelt by his side, I observed through my veil that he had a smattering of white paint on his ear. The faint odor of turpentine hung over him. He painted houses in the summer for extra money. That would have to change. Surely, he could find something more dignified to do. Besides, I had no

intention of hanging around someone with whom you're afraid to light a match.

The man definitely needed work. But I had years ahead to mold him into the husband he was capable of being. First, I made a mental note to let his hair grow out. God, I hated his burr. It made him look like a shag rug that had just been vacuumed.

And we'd have to do something about his eating habits. I came from a family that considered gravy a beverage. He ate vegetables which I regarded as decorations for the mantel. Imagine spending the rest of your life with a man who had never had cold dumplings for breakfast!

His best man and poker playing buddy, Ed Phillips, passed him the ring. I smiled as Bill slipped it on my finger. Ed and the entire group of merry little men were soon to be part of the past. No more single life playing poker until all hours of the morning. From here on in, it would just be the two of us watching sunsets and gazing into one another's eyes.

As our shoulders touched, I was challenged by the idea of setting up a schedule for him. All the years we had been dating, he had been late for everything. I was vowing to spend eternity with a man who had never heard the Star Spangled Banner or seen a kick-off at a game... never watched a curtain go up or heard an overture. He looked so relaxed. He couldn't know that I would soon teach him the virtues of putting the cap on a ballpoint pen so that it wouldn't dry out and instructing him on how left-handed people are supposed to hang up the phone so they won't drive right-handed people crazy.

The priest was Polish and between his accent and the Latin of the Mass, I strained to interpret his words. Then loud and clear I heard him admonish, "You, Bill, are to be the head of the house and you, Erma, are to be the heart."

In his dreams. What did he think he was dealing with here... a child who chose a nickel over a dime because it was bigger? I had seen the "heart detail" and I didn't struggle through four years of conjugating verbs to get choked up over my husband's high bowling scores.

Maybe I could talk Bill into being the heart... or at least trade off once in a while.

"I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MAN AND WIFE."

With the possible exceptions of "We have liftoff' and "This country is at war," there are few phrases as sobering.

The reception was held in a social hall near the edge of town, usually reserved for VFW picnics. Folding chairs lined the wall, giving it the intimacy of a bus station. A long table covered with white paper was in the center of the room and held the cake and the mound of ham sandwiches.

A car pulled up to the entrance. A couple with six kids piled out. The man yelled to no one in particular, "Charlie's here! Where's the beer?"

Bill looked at me and asked, "Yours?"

I nodded. "My uncle by marriage."

The rest of the day was a blur... relatives lining up on opposite sides of the room like two warring tribes... hundreds of children no one had ever seen before with cake on their faces... bridesmaids giving you that "Thank God it's you and not me" look... and Mother who couldn't stop crying because she was running out of ham.

A well-wisher asked where we were going on our honeymoon. I told her I wanted to go to New York City and see a Broadway show and stay at a fancy hotel and ride in a carriage at midnight through Central Park.

"So, where are you going?" she pressed.

"We're going fishing at Larvae Lake in Michigan."

"You married romance," she smiled.

What could I expect from a man who proposed by sliding my engagement ring over his cigar and lighting it?

At around 4,I looked for Bill. He was nowhere to be found. Outside in the parking lot, I spotted him with Ed and the whole gang of his buddies laughing and drinking beer and setting up a poker game the moment he got back.

It was going to be harder than I thought.

Living On Love

The adjustment we all feared and never talked about was sex. In the 40's, few of my friends had had undress rehearsals. Besides, we all figured anything the Catholic Church encouraged couldn't be much fun.

The biggest problem with sex was working it into our busy schedules. Sex between two and three on Saturdays was out of the question because the paperboy collected. Before breakfast was out because we always overslept. Forget after dinner. One of our parents always called and if we didn't answer our phone, they called the police. Tuesday was bowling night and Bill got home late, and Fridays I always washed my hair and slept in curlers so it would "set," so forget Fridays.

One night at card club, one of my friends quoted an article she had read that claimed the thrill of sex wears off after two years of marriage.

When we tried to figure out what would replace it, the answers ranged from hot fudge sundaes to gum surgery.

Adjustment to sex wasn't even in the top ten.

The real problems were ones we hadn't counted on. Newlyweds should forget all that garbage about cherishing and loving one another for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health and address the big question, "Can you feed and maintain yourselves?" You'd think someone would tell you when you are embarking on a sea of matrimonypack a lunch!