daily java

Daily Java:

So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
“At last!” the man exclaimed.
           “This one is bone from my bone,
 and flesh from my flesh!
 She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:21-24)

To the day I die, I will never forget taking my new wife into the hotel room as a new married couple.

We got married in January of 1971. We planned our honeymoon in Galveston. But, of course, being Texas, it was not going to be real cold. Besides, we didn’t plan to spend a lot of time on the beach.

The reception seemed to last forever. We opened a couple of thousand presents and ate cake and punch and stuff, but I was through. I was ready to go.

We finally got away. She put on her trousseau – a plaid outfit with a little cape – and she was ready to go, too. The two married people got into our Ford Galaxie 500 and took off for Galveston.

I hadn’t gotten my suitcase, which for some reason irritated Ella. I guess she was wanting to see me prepared fully and I was never that kind of guy. Ha! Showed her.

After going to my parents’ house in Texas City for the suitcase (it was on the way to Galveston, what’s the big deal?), we drove to Galveston. Since it was lunch time, we stopped at a restaurant across the street, kind of, from the hotel and had lunch.

The waitress asked Ella if she knew she had rice in her hair. Ella, for some reason, was suddenly tremendously embarrassed.

When we finished, we went to the hotel. The hotel was a fancy one (or at least to my pedestrian experiences). It was the Flagship Hotel and was built on a pier out into the Gulf. All of the rooms had water exposure.

The hotel, for three days and two nights, set me back $50. That was a little less than $20 a night with some room service and all thrown in. To a GI in 1971, that was an enormous amount of money. I think I probably only made $150 a month, if that much. But when we got married, she would get a special allowance too, so we would have enough to live.

Checking in was strange. Would they require proof of marriage to give us a room together, would we have trouble, all the usual questions came to mind. They didn’t and we didn’t, but even so, we went almost furtively to our room.

Of course, this was Galveston. The social mores and attitudes in Galveston were different than many parts of Texas. This was, after all, a town in which most of the inhabitants went around more than half naked in the summer.

We came in the room. It was pretty good sized as I recall, with a sliding glass door overlooking the Gulf. The bed was enormous.

Needless to say, we woke up the next morning to a sunny day. She discovered something amazing about me that night. That was that I liked to sleep with the sliding glass door open, even though it was the middle of the winter.

It was a bit of a sticking point, but we made it. We went to church that morning and it was the first time I introduced her as my wife. I messed it up, of course. My name is Johnny Cliver and  this is my wife, Ella Mochman – I mean Cliver.

We had pizza for lunch, she burned her lip. Room service hamburgers that night watching the Bill Cosby Show. She went into a crying jag that baffled me, but got over it. Just the stress of the weekend.

The next day we came back to life and began our journey together.

I have never regretted marrying her. We have had problems and difficulties, usually made by me, but we have been married for a long time. And I like it.