| I met Yolanda for the first time when I arrived at my last duty station in Long
Beach. She’d seemed interesting when I saw her photo, and meeting
her confirmed it. Interesting and full of surprises. Imagine my
dismay when I learned the girl was still in high school. A child! At
twenty-two, I looked, felt and acted decades older. What could I possibly
have in common with this schoolgirl? I hated ice cream and cherry Coke. Would
I be her prom date? The whole thing was crazy.
Notwithstanding her tender
age, young Yolanda and I were fond of each other from the moment we met, and
our evenings were filled with laughter and talk of the future. You think
it strange for a bearded combat veteran to date a girl barely old enough to
drive? You bet, but what really mystified
and intimidated me was her large Mexican family. Yolanda had grown up
in Torrance, California and had scores of relatives on both sides of the border. Family
is everything to a Mexican. I constantly worried I’d say or do
the wrong thing, and my fragile ties to this charming person would be severed
forever by an overprotective parent. Always on my best behavior, my deference
and solicitousness to her mother eventually won the day, and I was accepted
and welcomed into the family.
Compared to Yolanda, nothing else mattered in
my life. During the day,
I was a radar operator on a boat that never left the dock, so I went to work
and sat around and shot the shit until my shift ended. Nights were for
my girl. Four months of doing nothing but bullshit stateside duty flew
by, and almost before I knew it, I found myself in civilian clothes descending
the quarterdeck boarding ladder for the last time. The end of four years
in the navy, and hardly anyone noticed me leave. I tossed my things in
my car, drove off the base and never looked back.
One other thing happened
almost before I knew it. Yolanda and her mother
had planned and organized our wedding, complete with sixteen ushers, sixteen
bridesmaids, two maids of honor, two best men, a ring boy and a flower girl. Marriage
Mexican-style. Yeah!
|
