by Arthur Gibson

Created on: March 03, 2009

On December 26, 1970, my best friend became my wife. Because I was in the Navy and was only going to be home for 15 days, my bride had to plan the wedding virtually by herself. No matter how hard she tried, it was hard for her to get any assistance in the planning from me over the phone. From the day that I had proposed by phone from Pensacola, FL to our actual wedding date, I was in a state of shock! I couldn't believe that she had actually agreed to marry me.

For 3 weeks after she accepted my proposal in October, she had been after me to find out if I had told my parents we were getting married. When I finally made the phone call home to tell my parents, my dad told me he had told my mom in July that Karen and I were going to get married. I hadn't even known in July. By then I had proposed to Karen at least 4 times and always got the answer that she wasn't sure. What she actually meant, was she wasn't sure that I was sure. She was questioning my motives because we had only met that Memorial Day Weekend on a blind date and she knew I was going in the Navy July 1. And when I had proposed to her again prior to going to Pensacola for a Navy school, she had again refused to give me a definite answer. So when she had said yes over the phone, I had to ask her again to make sure I had heard her correctly. Granted it wasn't the most remantic proposal in the world, and not the way I intended, but it got the desired results.

I was on Cloud 9 as I got off the plane on December 19. I knew that I was getting ready to start a new phase of my life. And like all young men of 20, I knew I had all the answers to make sure we would have a happy marriage. Little did I know then, how few of the answers I had!

We had agreed to get married in family's church and that my Uncle Alfred would perform the ceremony for us. He had married athe majority of his brothers and sisters and my cousins. So it was kind of a family tradition to have him perform the service. 4 days prior to the wedding we had gone to my uncle's house for a pre-marial counseling session. And Uncle Al had done his best to bring me back down to Earth with the importance of the commitment Karen and I were about to make. The main point he made in our 2 hour discussion was not to think you could have a successful marriage if all you thought all you could get by only putting 50% into the relationship. He stressed that you had better be putting in a 100% effort all the time. Because there were going to be times that our partner

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