Lynn – Part 2

We started hanging out and partying with Dale K., whom I mentioned meeting at the LCCC coffeehouse, and his girlfriend, Kathy, and Fred and his girlfriend, Ellen K., whom I had known in high school. She was in my graduating class and played oboe in the orchestra and in the marching band. But I never got to know her until we started hanging out with Fred. She and Lynn became fast friends as they were both horse lovers and riders. They even went riding together a few times. Ellen knew a riding stable nearby where she had taken some lessons. They also boarded horses for those who didn’t have enough property to pasture them. This will come into the story again later.

Lynn’s room at her Uncle Jim’s was a curtained-off part of her cousin’s room, who was in high school. I don’t remember her name. Lynn got into trouble with her aunt and uncle for having me over late into the night and smoking what she told her cousin was ‘Turkish tobacco’ and incense. Her aunt and uncle kicked her out. So, I invited her to stay with me. Of course that went over like a lead balloon with Mom and Dad, Mom mostly, as all my siblings were ‘young and impressionable’, except for Guy who was now gone and in the Air Force and Ted who was living in Little Italy and studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA). Mom tolerated it for about a month, then told us we’d have to get married if we were going to continue staying there. Lynn and I talked it over, and it seemed like the best option at the time.

We went to Virginia to see Lynn’s dad, Lee C. He was working for the Pentagon, and none of us knew what he did there, top secret. He was divorced from Lynn’s mom, who lived in Florida. Lee wined and dined us. He told me he was relieved that someone was actually willing to take Lynn off his hands. He and I got along very well, though he drank way more than I was used to, and kept filling my water tumbler with ice and scotch, both prior to going out to dinner, during, and after. Lynn’s half-brother and half-sister, Jimmy and Lindy, were living with him but didn’t go to dinner with us. It was an expensive dinner (I don’t remember where), and the food was great. I think I had filet mignon. Can’t remember what Lynn had, perhaps Lobster. We parted on good terms, and Lee promised to attend the wedding, eager to give the bride away.

To be Continued

–LE