An Unplanned Engagement, 1962, by S. A. Johnston
From MemoryArchive
Who: S. A. Johnston What: An unplanned engagement When: July, 1962 Where: Carbondale IL
In one short exchange with my girlfriend, Barbara, then 2 months out of high school – now a college freshman -- I radically changed the course of my life from how my life would unfold as seen in my mind's eye. It was late July, 1962; I had two more years of college ahead. She and I were having a conversation on the Thompson Point beach, where we'd been swimming, on the Southern Illinois University campus. An observer would have seen I was smitten. Accordingly, in a monumentally impetuous moment I looked at her and asked, "Barbara, will you marry me?"
We had been dating for six weeks during Summer Quarter. Our first meeting was an electric blind date.
Immediately, I felt the urge to both escape embarrassment due to what I had said and to suggest that I wasn't serious, not at all serious. When she hesitated, I added playfully, "I'll give you 30 seconds to answer." And I smiled.
To this day I have no clear idea what went through Barbara's head. Did she ask herself: What would Steve do if I took far more than 30 seconds to think it over? (I would have confessed I wasn't at all serious.) Had she been the more sensible one, she might have stated, "Steve, this is really premature. (Yeah, really!) Did you put any planning into this? (No. Zilch.) Are you now thinking that if I say yes, we'll be going off to the jewelry store soon to pick out a diamond engagement ring? (Emphatically, NO! And it didn't happen until(!) we notified her parents of our intention. This was months later. However, within a few months after I did buy her an engagement ring, I harbored no doubt that I loved Barbara.) If you're merely kidding me, I'll forgive you." (A winner!) -- Something to that effect.
Instead, she doomed both of us with her one-word reply, "Yes."
After we grasped our new reality, we appeared to agree that we were engaged from that moment on. Henceforth, I felt honor-bound to marry her, in time.
Barbara was the daughter of a local farm couple, so acceptance among the college community was readily given. A Chicago urbanite would not have fit in as well. Upon seeing me regularly having my cafeteria meals with this very attractive coed, the fellows in my dorm heartily approved. I had been a somewhat unpopular "outsider" who had transferred in from a Big Ten school – Michigan -- less than six months earlier. I rose in their esteem after Barbara and I became a couple, and dorm life became more bearable after that.
Up until the day she received my Dear Jane letter, the gal I had in Kalamazoo was making plans to relocate to Carbondale – that cultural oasis in the midst of rural Southern Illinois -- and live together by June 1963, when she finished her teaching certificate. Peggy and I would've seemed a far better match... except for her Protestant parents, who didn't want any part of a Catholic son-in-law. Nonetheless, she had been sufficiently drawn to me that, mid-Spring Quarter, she took Amtrak the 400 or so miles to Carbondale to see me and to deepen our relationship.
Not to disembark from my train of thought -- yes, if I hadn't started to get serious about Barbara (the sole basis for the timing of my Dear Jane letter), there's an outside chance that Peggy and I would've married.
Had Barbara and I not become engaged during that first year of dating, we would not have bonded the way we did. Taking the view that I would have remained single until my graduation (December '64), I would have done something very different with my life. However, there was one apprehension that would have grown steadily more worrisome: that I would leave college and travel, all expenses paid. How? I knew full well the Army wanted me.
Barbara and I married in June 1964. When I graduated six months later, she was five months pregnant. It was patently foolish that I would then move back to Ann Arbor to seek suitable employment. I surely knew that, there, a bachelor's degree from Michigan always trumped a comparable degree from SIU. A thoughtless mistake!
I was still immature at age 23: foolish and overly fearful of the world beyond the campus, my cocoon. When Lynne was born in mid-March, I was working full-time in a dead-end job and at minimum wage. These days that would be recognized as a poverty wage, wholly inadequate for a family of three.
Becoming a father had unforeseen advantages. After my draft board reclassified me 3-A (from 1-Y, conditionally exempt), I knew I wouldn't be going to Vietnam and could plan a life of my own choosing. -- I had a secondary reason for dreading the draft: beginning in 1966, I began actively protesting the War, so it's much better that I wasn't in uniform.
[The subtext of my draft status while at SIU may prove interesting: It was Barbara's roommate who arranged our introduction. When, sadly, she was diagnosed with leukemia and withdrew from school, Barbara gained a new roommate. She turned out to be the daughter of the lone campus physician. It was he who gave me the required physical exam for participation in ROTC. I used that opportunity to tell the doctor I didn't want to participate in ROTC (I took Army ROTC at U-Michigan my freshman year), and I most certainly didn't want to be drafted. He obligingly “confirmed” some physical defect which would accomplish all that. I forwarded those forms he signed to my draft board and requested to have my status changed. I kept that new status until Spring of '65, when my status became a very-safe 3-A.]
Given the aforesaid, speculation over four decades later is an idle exercise. In reality, I have my precious daughter and my two wonderful and healthy grandchildren. Life is about taking what you get. And I got a good deal.
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