My first notice of Renita's family came in the wide smile of her oldest son, Marcus. I was sitting at the piano during a Cub Scout Chorus rehearsal when I looked out over the group of singers. There, staring at me with the cutest smile was this blond headed kid. His image stuck in my memory, though I didn't think too much of it at the time. Soon after, the group did a performance at the bowling alley where I used to work. As a reward of that performance, we had a bowling party a week or so later. We divided up into teams, and on my team there was this brown haired kid named Jason who was very fun to watch. He would jump high up into the air and move in such a way that I knew he must be pretty good at sports. Later I learned that Jason and Marcus were brothers, and that they were new to the chorus (it always took me a long time to learn most of the boys' names, or even know what new ones were joining the group). I remember asking the director of the chorus, Donna Wagstaff, who they were. She told me a bit about them and about their mother, Renita. Soon after that conversation, Renita called me and asked if I could do the tape for her. I agreed, and from that point on, we headed straight for the weekend that led directly into the marriage. It was a very fast decision, and one that proved to be a good one, if only for a rather short period of time. We both felt that it was simply our destiny, an act of God, to meet and marry, but now that we are no longer together, Renita may have ended up feeling that her feelings were ultimately in error. Nevertheless, I still believe that the marriage was meant to be, but only for a short period. I believe that for Renita, I helped save her from some financial difficulties she was experiencing at the time, and that's why she was wanting me to marry her so quickly. For me, it gave me the opportunity to fill a rather large emptiness in my life; it gave me a family experience that I otherwise would never have had. So, in spite of how our marriage ended, I will always appreciate what that marriage did for me. I now believe that I have had the worst first marriage that a person like myself could have, and that I have had the best second marriage a person like myself could have. I am satisfied, and I ended up feeling no further desire to do any of it over again.
Life with Renita's family was very busy. There were soccer practices and matches to go to, cub scout rehearsals and performances, a lot of music recording being done, both for the chorus and for myself, mostly late at night when it was quiet and everyone else was asleep. Renita had joined the Methodist church choir that I was singing with, and that lasted for a few years longer before we both dropped out of it because of other family involvements. I occasionally attended her church, and even accepted a job with them now and then. There was school work, school projects, and school performances that took up quite a bit of time; but it was all fun and interesting. We often talked about how we "helicoptered" over the kids, making sure their lives were filled with all the activities that would turn them into productive and vibrant adults. It would definitely be the pinnacle of my life as a "family man."
Marcus and I became quite close, and we did a lot of things together. He was the "perfect" son for me. Whenever I needed to go somewhere, Marcus generally went along too. His mother often called him my "shadow," and I loved it. Marcus' mind was always very busy, and he always needed something to do. We once built a remote controlled car with small motors and Lego's, using one motor to make the car move forward and backwards, and another one to turn the wheels right and left. Later, both he and Jason would get into radio controlled cars, which was an expensive, but very fun, hobby for them. Marcus became interested in CB radios, and we got one for my truck along with a hand held one. This was short lived, because the conversations on the citizen bands were either crude or superficial, or both. He then asked me if I would help him study and become licensed as an amateur radio operator. I agreed, we took the class for our novice licenses, I helped him with Morse Code, and we both ended up with Technician Plus grade licenses. Our call signs came back with only one letter apart. We became quite active for awhile as ham radio operators, including setting up a packet station and node (computer based radio operation) and becoming involved with the annual Wasatch 100 Endurance Run (a marathon race through the mountains) as, first, team participants on the communication side, and then as captains of the aid station. Marcus captained the station one year as his Eagle Scout project, and though he was injured in a bicycle accident just as we set up the camp, his leadership of the camp was a flawless success. Marcus and I had a remarkable friendship as he grew into adulthood. I have never been happier in my life than when Marcus liked me as much as he obviously did, and I think very often of those years when he was still a kid and we were inseparable.
Renita's daughter Melanie was a jewel of a little girl. She had the prettiest eyes and such a beautiful smile. She always had a very deep love for her mother, and seeing her cuddle up to her mother always added so much warmth to the home in which we lived. I think that Melanie never really saw me as a father figure, and there always seemed to be kind of a distance between us. Along with her mother, Melanie loved her own father very much, and I feel I purposely kept a little distance between us for fear that either she, or her father, might be uncomfortable with more closeness between us. Whether that was the right way to do it or not, it was what happened. In any case, I will always have very fond memories of Melanie. She was a person that did not like conflict or turmoil in her proximity, and she always retreated to her own private space when there was any kind of tenseness in the air. Melanie will always be in my group of "favorite people."
Jason was to his family exactly what I was to mine. He was not only the second son, and the middle child, like I was, he was also the clown of the family. Life was always brighter and laughter-filled when Jason was feeling his best. Dinner time was the chosen time for Jason to shine, and more often than not, we did as much laughing over his antics as we did eating. Though I didn't want it to come too quickly, I anticipated the time when Marcus would grow older and move his focus away from me and the family and move into early adulthood, and when Jason and I would then, hopefully, have some time to develop our friendship more like Marcus and I had. When this time finally came, and Marcus went to live with his dad, I very much enjoyed a heightened friendship and bond with Jason. We started playing some pretty good tennis (his natural athletic skills forced me to improve my tennis more than any earlier time in my life), and spent more time together. Jason would introduce me to his friends in a way that was not only very respectful, but showed that he considered me actually "cool." I felt bigger than life when Jason treated me this way. Unfortunately, it would be only a few months before Jason would fall for his first girl, and, as we all know, once this happens, the child is gone forever. In any case, Jason will always be one of my favorite people. I envy those people who now enjoy Jason's companionship.
A few years into the marriage we decided to take a trip to Seattle and travel around in that area for a week or so. We took my son Ryan, who had not yet withdrawn from my life, and who had taken a special liking for Jason. We had a wonderful time, and I think very often of the very many happy memories that were created during that trip. We bought a video camera because of that trip, and the camera was used very much, on the trip and afterwards, and mostly by me. Throughout the marriage we recorded many family events with that camera, and I religiously transferred the camera tapes onto regular VHS tapes so that we could view them in a VCR. Unfortunately, a few months after the marriage had broken up, Renita showed up at my door to take possession of the original tapes made with the camera. She told me she would make me copies of them, but I knew she really didn't intend to do this. Fortunately for me, I had, for some now unknown reason, transferred a short clip onto VHS from the night before we went on that trip to Seattle. It never made it onto the longer ones that Renita has. That one particular clip was taken of the family, tired and needing to go to bed, but still a little too worked up and excited about the trip to go to sleep. Jason, however, was already asleep on the floor (Jason always slept well whenever and wherever he wanted to). Marcus, though, was still wide eyed, and he was acting in his most cute and happy way as I took that clip. Melanie was snuggling up to her mother, and we were all incredibly happy. This short clip is one of my greatest treasures. Unable to view the rest of the family videos in my present life is a great loss to me because of the divorce, but the trip to Seattle remains almost equally as vivid in my mind as the video we took of it. We used the video camera on numerous occasions after the trip, and of all those dozen or so tapes, I was able to end up with only this short clip, and also an additional longer camera tape that was the last one made before the divorce, one that I never got transferred over to regular tape. When Renita came and took the camera tapes, I purposely didn't give her that final camera tape, thinking I would hold it ransom in case the opportunity presented itself to get a copy of some of our video life before the divorce. I often wonder if she even realizes that she is missing the last event or two on video, and then realizes that I have it.
I was working for the bank during my marriage to Renita, and this eight year marriage (four really good years, and four wind down years to end the marriage) was the time which marked my best effort at providing for people other than myself. I failed miserably in so many ways, but I was still better in the effort than at any other time in my life. I had to relinquish my own control of, or irresponsible use of, my money. Once we settled on how to do the money (she got most of it; I retained my "allowance"), things went very well for the first few years. However, as my income rose, so did my allowance, since the division line in the money was kind of set at three-fourths of my income for her to use how she knew it needed to be used, and the other fourth for me to do the same, but to also squander in my way in order to keep me happy. I usually squandered it on the boys, buying them different things they needed for their hobbies, and just having a good time in a favorite game/pool parlor and other places, which included frequent stops at fast food places. As my squandering increased with my "allowance," I started using my credit cards, finally using my allowance to make the payments on those cards. In other words, I ended up having little monthly spending money again. In any case, it was really the nicest time of my life. I had a family, including the most ideal children in every way. I had money to squander during most of that marriage. And, instead of the typical bachelor's almost empty refrigerator, mine with almost exclusively liquids in it (beer and pop), I always had very good food to eat, even when I didn't have any money. Those early years of the marriage were the closest I have ever been to pure heaven on earth.
Unfortunately, one of the few constants in my life has always been that nothing stays the same. There have always been major changes in my life. Nothing has been very permanent in my life, and this would be no exception. I look back and think that maybe I should feel bitter that my heaven on earth had to end. I don't feel bitter. My memories of that marriage, or at least the memories I prefer to bring back to mind, are mostly of the first four years. Change often hurts, and the changes that pass through a divorce always hurt in some ways. Where it hurts the worst is realizing that the person you were bonded to in marriage never became your intimate friend, as well as your sex partner and companion in other ways. Experts in the field say that a lack of communication is one of the most common factors that leads to divorce of people who were formerly so much in love with each other. Obviously, and in my experience, underneath that lack of communication is a labyrinth of very complex issues that should have been laid out on the table and resolved before any serious marriage took place at all. Many people who marry young don't even know yet what those personality issues are. Older people, and especially those who have been married, or have had other intimate relationships, are sometime reluctant to reveal some of their secrets until they feel comfortable that they won't be prematurely rejected because of those secrets. Also, a general observation that I have made in my life, and one that I have often heard from other people, mostly divorced men, is that a very basic problem in marriages is that women tend to become attached to men and then expect to change them in certain ways, but the men don't change; and men tend to become attached to women and hope they will stay the way they are, and the women change. When Renita and I jumped into our marriage, I think we tried to become new people in certain ways. I believe that both of us tried to make our future together devoid of much baggage from what we were leaving behind. Neither of us succeeded in this. Though Renita would need to tell about her own perspective of the marriage and about that time of her life, I might attempt to talk about both sets of baggage that each of us brought into the marriage, and how that baggage ultimately destroyed the marriage. Renita's version, of course, would be equally as valid as mine; it would probably also be more realistic than mine. In any case, this time of my life was very important to me for both good and bad, and it deserves, almost requires, its own special consideration. So, I started a Part II to write more about this. But, then I remembered the old saying that we should let sleeping dogs lie, and I finally decided that some things in life really are best put away and left alone. So, I am ending this chapter of my life and moving on to my last and final two sections of my life history.
Go back or Go on to Current Status and Future Outlook.
