was easy to plan. My mother did most of the work as she was on the spot in Bethel. Bernie and I flew back. As we were leaving, we spoke to our next door neighbor, a nice old gentleman. He thought we were married already, of course, so I was grateful I was wearing a pair of gloves for travel. Imagine! Wearing gloves for an airplane trip. That’s what ladies did them.

In New York, someone, likely Lyman, Bernie’s friend, picked us up at the airport. I felt so sophisticated: “Transcontinental couple  arrive in New York from Los Angeles. They’re here to get married on August 9,1958 in charming Redding, Connecticut.”

We got married in Redding because Bernie was a “fallen-away” Catholic, which means no Catholic at all. The Redding church was a kind of a primitive outpost missionary church for Bethel’s St Mary’s church.  My mother-in-law commented later on the dirty collar of the priest who officiated. He darted away the minute the ceremony was over, refusing my invitation to the reception.

I don’t remember the reception very well. According to my Aunt Eunice, who wrote local news  for the Danbury News-times, it was a lovely affair.  Another newspaper clipping my Dad saved said we would be “at home after August 18 in Berverley Hills.”

Amazing! 1958 and some newspaper woman still used “at home” to indicate I would be receiving guests after August 18. And without a butler, too.

At any rate we flew to San Francisco, saw the city and then went to a party friends gave us across the bay in Berkeley. Before I worked for Ken Baldridge, I spent a year in Oakland and Berkeley, working for Tim Leary.

I enjoyed showing my husband to everyone and talking to everyone. Now that I was a married woman, I felt that some of them were a little too laid back. John from Salt Lake City sat on the floor drinking beer, drunk. And Ann, who’d planned the party, was quitting her job and going to Germany to work for the USO. And my friend Marilyn wouldn’t come in to the party because her husband, an Arab, wouldn’t come in.

Marilyn was a friend from my days in Oakland where I lived in The Blue Triangle Club. It was a hotel for women run by the YWCA. Nice and also cheap. I had hoped she made the right choice of husband, someone who would appreciate her expansive hips. I’d hoped he hadn’t marry her for her citizenship.

So there they were, at our party. So to speak. I went out to meet him and talk to Marilyn. A little later, I brought Bernie out to meet him. We each, Marilyn and I, showed off our prizes.