On a beach trip, recently, I rode my bicycle past an old hotel that brought back some memories.
It is the hotel where Candace and I stayed on our short honeymoon nearly 47 years ago. The name is different, the paint is much brighter, but I find it easy to recognize the hotel that rises above the sandy shore at North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
I still remember checking into the hotel on the night of May 21, 1975. We arrived that night after our little wedding ceremony at the Methodist church in Wallace, N.C.. We were 20 and checking into a hotel. That was a big deal for us. In our young minds, we were grown. I am sure the fellow behind the hotel desk looked at us and knew we were really young. I might have looked 20, but Candace, who did not even hit 100 pounds on the scales, looked like she was still in high school. Of course, we were years from high school. At least some years.
Riding my bike past the hotel several times, I was impressed it is still there. I am impressed and happy that Candace and I are still around. And, still married.
When Candace and I were guests there, I never imagined that nearly a half century later we would be staying at a house a short distance away down the beach. In 1975, we were on our way back to Texas for my summer newspaper internship before returning to our Texas college. I never expected to live in North Carolina or ever to visit that beach again.
I thought about the life we have lived since we pulled into the parking lot in our 1965 Chevrolet Impala. College, graduate school, children, grandchildren, jobs, friends gained and friends lost, parents who have passed away. Good days, better days, hard days, worse days. And, we are still right here. That is not something that goes unnoticed and unappreciated by us.
When we decided to marry. Wait, here is the truth. Candace convinced me that the time had come to be brave and tell family that we were not waiting any longer. At spring break in 1975, Candace told her parents we wanted to marry and they agreed it was okay. Meanwhile, I told my mother in Texas and my father in Georgia. My father spent hours trying to dissuade me, telling me that I needed to wait until I was much older. When I pulled an Eric Burdon and declared “It’s my life and I’ll do what I want,” my father responded that he would not attend the wedding and would not help us in any way.
I did not know my father well at the time. He and my mother married young and divorced young. I was not around him much until after high school. My father assumed my marriage at a young age would fail as his did.
Candace and I stood up for ourselves and stood together before that minister who probably asked God to forgive him for marrying such young people. Looking back, Candace and I have one little regret about marrying at 20. We should have married when we were 19. I am serious.
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