He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 18:22)Forty years ago about right now, we had eaten dinner at a seafood place in Galveston where we were going for our honeymoon. The lady who waited on us told Ella she had rice in her hair. Ella was, for some reason, very embarrassed.
Finally it came time to go to the hotel room.
The Flagship was a fancy hotel, one I usually didn’t choose. It was $50 for the two nights in 1971 money - $25 a night. Considering that I only made a little over $100 a month as a GI, it was a princely sum.
But it was also one of the coolest places to have your honeymoon. In fact the next morning we saw five or six cars with writing on them.
The hotel was out on a pier jutting into the Gulf of Mexico. All of the rooms had balconies and all of them had water exposure. We stayed on the fifth or sixth floor, I forget which.
It was one of the experiences of a lifetime, entering a hotel room with your new wife for the first time. You stand around and wonder what to do.
And you realize that we are going to be living together like this for the next lifetime.
We got room service the first night – such luxury! Hamburgers, I think. We were young people, of course.
The next morning, we went to church. The Broadway Church of Christ. We came in the door and met the people standing in the foyer. Hello, my name is Johnny Cliver and this is my wife, Ella Mochman. I mean Ella Cliver. Wow! She was my wife, you know. Even had my name now.
We ate pizza for lunch. It was too hot and burned Ella’s lip a little. I helped to apply pressure with some mouth to mouth.
We didn’t attend church that night. We went and got hamburgers and fries from Burger Chef and watched Bill Cosby’s show on TV. Ella started crying from the stress and all of the weekend. The big stupid idiot stood by while she did. Was she sorry she had married me? Why is she crying?
She quit after a minute – one of my first lessons of the differences between men and women – and everything was okay.
Monday we went back to my parents’ house and took up residence in their formal living room for a week.
Nancy, my ten year old sister was jealous beyond belief. I was, after all, her big brother and she almost idolized me. She hogged me and my presence and laid all over me until my mother finally made her leave so we all could go to bed.
Then we went to Germany – our first adventure together.
I love that woman.
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