Leaving for our honeymoon from the Crest parking lot. It doesn't get any more old school Midwest City than that.
In January of this year, Jene and I celebrated 45 years of being married. As a part of our celebration, I selected one picture from each of our 45 years and made an album (real prints, not virtual) for her. We had lots of laughs and tears looking at those pictures. I decided to share the pictures with our friends and family on facebook and was amazed at how many people really seemed to be interested in our old pictures. Some of them, who for some reason are enjoying these installments, asked if I would include some stories to go along with the pictures. So here they are.
Our story begins in 1960. My family moved to MWC in 1957 when Dad was transferred to OKC for his final assignment before retiring from the US Army. Jene’s family moved to MWC from LIttle Rock in 1958. We first met as sophomores at Midwest City High School in the Fall of 1960. She had been a Rocket and I, a Thunderbird, but now we were Bombers and soon became good friends. We had a common interest in Speech and Drama and spent many hours together with the rest of the drama crowd at rehearsals, contests, performances, and just hanging out. Our first kiss was in our Junior play, The Pleasure of His Company. I played her grandfather and kissed her on the forehead. We had our first date sometime in the Spring of our Senior year. We really don’t remember exactly when it was. We do remember going to the Senior Prom together.
After graduation in 1963, we went off to OU with about half of our graduating class. After some starts and stops, our relationship deepened and I asked her to marry me in the Summer of 1966. We originally set a date for after graduation in 1967, but soon decided we really didn’t want to wait that long. So after our whirlwind courtship of seven years we were married 21 January 1967 at Meadowood Baptist Church in Midwest City.
The reason we left from the Crest parking lot was that my Dad had not wanted to have his black Corvair covered with shoe polish so we parked it there and planned to have the Best Man, David Leighton, take us from the church after the wedding. But Jene’s sneaky Aunt Marcia managed to get the secret location out of Dad and all of our plans came to naught.
The stories of the other pictures will come in future installments.
“Smilin Sam” Digital Image. Photographed 9 August 2009, Edmond, OK . Privately held by Richard Orand Cheek, Midwest City, OK, 2009.
The Cheek That Doth Not Fade 