By Marilyn and Gary Pickens
Arriving in the Bay Area
Marilyn’s version:
As a background to this story, I was living in San Francisco almost by accident. The Vietnam War had been going on for several years when I had applied for the job of U.S.O. Mobile Units secretary in San Francisco. It was May 1969, and I was on a brief visit to the city with an older friend that I had met in college, a woman named Manette Radford, who had been a graduate student at the University of San Diego College for Women with me. As I remember, she had worked as a U.S. Army secretary in Europe at the end of World War II, and she often hung out with the French students at the college. According to what I can recall, she had some sort of a U.S. government job (civil service) and she came to U.S.D. to get some credits to raise her pay grade. I don’t remember anything more than that. (In San Francisco, Manette rented a room in the same house I did for awhile, to save up some money, and then she bought herself a houseboat and moved to Tiburon, a few months before I met Gary. I saw her very rarely after that. She enjoyed partying more than I did.)
Manette Radford knew I had been turned down for the study abroad program at the college, and she knew that I would not be continuing my M.A. in French—though my parents did not seem to grasp this at all. She also happened to have a friend in San Francisco who worked for a government employment agency, and this friend knew that the U.S.O. was in a rather desperate situation at the time. The position of Mobile Units Secretary at the Bay Area U.S.O. had been vacant since the beginning of the year, probably because of the anti-war feeling in the Bay Area in 1969. The Director of the Mobile Units was fairly desperate to get someone into the office, and some of the standard requirements of the time period—like “women’s office apparel” requiring shoes with two inch high heels—were set aside when she hired me for the position, although I did not know this at the time.
The Bay Area U.S.O. Mobile Units organized on-base U.S.O. events for the military bases throughout the Bay Area. Travis Air Force Base was at the northern edge of the area, and Moffett Naval Air Station was at the southern edge. The Presidio of San Francisco, Naval Station Treasure Island, two NIKE missile sites in the hills on the northern side of the Golden Gate, and all of the military hospitals in the area, were served by the Mobile Units program. The majority of the events were scheduled for the evenings, after the working day ended. When I settled into the position of secretary, my boss was able to come in at 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. and work a standard eight hour day, which ended at 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., since most of the Mobile Units events were scheduled after the standard working hours at the various military bases.
I did have one assignment from my boss during my first week on the job which, in retrospect, I believe was designed to set me up against San Francisco’s 19th century “ugly laws.” I was sent to a certain store and told to ask the woman sitting at the front help desk where I could find a certain item. When I did this, the woman would only say, “I don’t believe that I am allowed to help you.” After two iterations of these words, I politely asked the woman who would be able to give her the necessary permission to help me. She pointed out the manager’s office in the back of the store. Once I was in the main store and supposedly on my way to the manager’s office, I quickly found the item my boss wanted, took it to the cash register, and checked out (inwardly rolling my eyes at the silliness of the whole situation).
Upon my return to the office, I just laid the item, the receipt, and the change from my purchase on my boss’s desk, with no comment. At the time I just thought that the woman at the help desk was a bit simple-minded, but I did bump into that same phrase in a few other long-established downtown stores during my stay in San Francisco. It was not until the age of the internet that I discovered that there was actually a city ordinance forbidding people with visible handicaps—people like me—from appearing in public in downtown San Francisco during the standard business hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Now, as I remember this, I believe that my boss had set up a small test for me, sending me to a place where she knew that I would not be well-received. I had passed her test without even knowing that it was a test. Local municipal laws against handicapped people appearing in public, known colloquially as “ugly laws,” were on the books in several cities across the country at that time. The last recorded local arrest of a person because of the “ugly laws” occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1974, which was three years after I had left San Francisco in 1971. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 legally abolished all such laws on a national basis.
I should point out that I moved to San Francisco without parental support. My mother and father were horrified when I cashed out my return ticket to create a bank account, and I got several very worried telephone calls. I was 23 years old, and I had never been allowed to go on dates or have anything resembling a social life when I was at home. In this, my parents had followed the advice of a well-known child psychologist who was a friend of my father. She was a high-priced specialist from Beverly Hills, Dr. Grace Brunler, who had been trained in Europe, and who (at my father’s request when I was about fourteen) firmly told me that I should have social contacts only through my sisters or other family members, because it was “completely natural” for me, as a person physically handicapped from birth, to be socially shut out and shunned by “normal” people, young or old. I was told that I could never expect to be accepted into “normal” society. And the question of my marrying and living independently of my birth family was not even a subject to be considered. That was pretty much the standard expert opinion in those days, and it exactly mirrored the attitude of the “ugly laws.”
Many years later, when I saw my official long-form birth certificate (which I had to obtain in 2010 for Social Security purposes, and which, because of legislation passed in the Obama administration, contained a full set of hospital notes) I finally understood why it had been so very important that I be kept away from strangers who might ask too many questions about my physical problems as I was growing up. I had often been told that my father was the doctor who had delivered me, and the medical assessment of what had happened was right there on my birth certificate! Of course, when I was a child and a young adult, the isolation of people like me was fully supported by society, both by the etiquette rules and by the actual laws of some cities. My situation was very ordinary.
As a footnote on this, when I received my first paycheck from my new job, I went to the City of Paris department store to buy a new dress. A friendly sales person there pointed out that my clothes from home were simply too big for me. Perhaps my mother thought that I was still growing, or that my sisters might might need to share my clothes. Or maybe that was just a “standard operating procedure” for my situation. In any case, the new dress I bought for myself that day fit me much better than my old one, and when I wore it felt a little less shy, and a bit more like a “normal” person.
I was just beginning a new life in San Francisco in those final days of May in 1969, and all I knew was that, for the first time, I would have a chance to live a perfectly ordinary life, on my own terms and with my own choices. It would be an adventure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_law
Gary’s version:
After finishing Navy Boot Camp in San Diego, I returned home for a short furlough and then I went back to San Diego for Basic Electronics School. It was on the same base as the Boot Camp. I felt a little proud that all the new recruits in Boot Camp had to salute as I walked by!
Our barracks was directly beneath the flight path of the planes taking off from Lindbergh Field, which was the San Diego airport. All conversations would cease whenever a plane flew overhead, and the trees would blow in the wind which was created by the aircraft. Very noisy!
During Basic Electronics School, I was free to explore the city of San Diego in a way that had been impossible when I was in Boot Camp. There was a bicycle shop just outside the gate of the base, and I bought a bike for $65.00—nearly two whole paychecks. I explored that part of San Diego pretty well. My favorite destination was Presidio Park, just above Old Town San Diego. I did not know that I was near where my future wife grew up, and that I probably rode past her father’s medical office. I also found a Congregational church in that area, which I attended sometimes. After I was married, that became our regular church and our daughter was baptized there.
At the end of Basic Electronics School, in the summer of 1970, I was ordered to report to the Naval Tactical Data Systems (NTDS) School at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, a base located near Vallejo, California. I was issued an airplane ticket to San Francisco, and I was told that a bus would meet me at the airport to transport me to Mare Island.
I was traveling with a large group of 20 or more other sailors who were all headed to the Naval Electronics School at Treasure Island, very close to San Francisco. My Mare Island destination, on the other hand, was in the far northeastern corner of the Bay Area, a long way from the airport. When we landed, at about 10 a.m., the men headed to Treasure Island had a bus waiting for them, but I was told that I had to wait for another bus. I waited and waited, but no bus came. Finally, at about 3 p.m., I went and talked to the information desk, and the person there suggested that I go to the U.S.O. on the second floor.
I went upstairs and talked to the U.S.O. ladies and they were very helpful. (It was the first time I had ever used any U.S.O. services, or had even been aware of the U.S.O.) They scurried around and found a dime for me, so that I could use the pay phone to call Mare Island. I did that, then I had some free coffee and doughnuts, and finally I went downstairs and waited for my ride. A gray U.S. Navy van came about an hour later to pick me up. The driver apologized for not coming earlier—somehow the trip had not been written in the log. We headed towards Mare Island, and I was wide-eyed, looking at all the sights—the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, the San Francisco skyline and the piers along the east side of the bay.
I had paid the bike shop in San Diego to ship my bike to the Bay Area, and they boxed it up and sent it to a place in Oakland. However, I did not have a car to get from my new station to Oakland, and by the time I had persuaded a Navy friend to drive me down to pick up my bike, it had been stolen. So I lost my $65.00 baby, and I couldn’t do much exploring until I got my car from Flagler.
By October, I had finally saved enough money for airplane tickets and gas so that I could go home and get the car which I had used in college. It was a dark green Javelin, made by the American Motor Company, with a 6 cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. It was nice looking, but economical to drive. My brother Kenny had been working on getting it into shape while I was saving up for my journey.
By the time I was ready to go home to Flagler, Colorado, Kenny had equipped the Javelin with brand new brake pads, Michelin tires, and a fresh oil change. It had attracted quite a bit of attention—from both students and faculty—on the campus of Colorado College while he was fixing it up. (He had brought the car with him to college because the necessary repair parts were available in Colorado Springs, but not in Flagler.)
A friend from the NTDS School and I made plans to go to Colorado to pick up the car. It would have to be a fast trip, no longer than one weekend. I figured that if we flew out Friday evening, we could stay overnight with my parents. Then we would head out for a non-stop trip back to Vallejo, California.
So I bought the cheapest plane tickets I could find for my friend and myself and we headed for San Francisco Airport after our last class on Friday. My friend was from southern California and he had only been out of the Los Angeles area once or twice before he joined the U.S. Navy. He was really into surfing and he knew all the beaches in his area, particularly Huntington Beach. He had long tales about the beach parties he had attended, but he was also curious about Colorado. He had driven a delivery van in one of his jobs after he graduated from high school, and he was an experienced driver. I thought he would be a good companion on the long road from Colorado back to California.
We flew from San Francisco to Denver, and my brother Kenny came up from Colorado College. He met us at the gate in the old Stapleton International airport in Denver, Colorado, and drove us out to the farm in the newly refurbished Javelin. He was justifiably proud of his hard work! We stayed overnight at the house with my family.
Our planned drive from Flagler Colorado to Vallejo California is in blue.
The next day we packed my car with the things that we would need on the trip and the things I wanted in Vallejo. Finally, at about 4:00 PM, we headed out. We planned to ride for several hours, then change drivers, and continue this way until we arrived back in Vallejo. Most of the road was new to both of us so we enjoyed the scenery, at least until it got dark. Our first stop, for gas and food, was at a huge place in western Wyoming called Little America Truck Stop. It was on Interstate Highway 80, out in the middle of nowhere.
By this time it was dark, and the weather was looking bad. We kept the radio on so we could stay apprised of weather conditions. We continued to head west on Interstate Highway 80, crossing into Utah and driving through Salt Lake City. Then we saw the Great Salt Lake, and crossed the Salt Flats in western Utah.
About this time, it started snowing. My friend was driving and he was obviously having trouble. He shared with me the news that he had never driven in snow. Like any typical Southern Californian, he barely even knew what snow was. He was trying to be brave and wanted to soldier on, but I could see that he was not comfortable. After some time, I suggested that maybe I should drive, and he was extremely happy to turn the car over to my control. I continued slowly and carefully on our route, from eastern Nevada though Reno and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. My friend took over the driving again after we left the mountains, just as the sun was rising. When we went through Sacramento, we knew we were almost home—just one more hour to Vallejo, and then we could get to the barracks and get some sleep. And now I had a car, so my range of exploration in the Bay Area could extend further. I could visit Yosemite, Mount Shasta and southern Oregon, Point Reyes, the Wine Country, San Francisco… the list seemed endless. I was very happy that we had finished the trip successfully, and I was very grateful to my brother for fixing my car.
How we met
Gary’s version:
A few days before Valentine’s Day, 1971, I and three of my friends in the NTDS school, at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, were walking past a bulletin board and noticed a posting about a U.S.O. dance in Oakland on the following weekend. We said “That sounds interesting!” to each other, and we didn’t think much more about it.
On the day of the dance, we were all messing around the barracks after work, and finally someone remembered the dance in Oakland (which was about 30 miles from Mare Island). So my friends and I quickly got into our dress blues and headed out to Oakland in my little green Javelin. We knew that we would be late to the event, but perhaps we could get in an hour or so of dancing anyway.
The dance was held in a large room on the second floor of an old building in downtown Oakland. When we got there, we found a lot of guys milling along the walls and a few couples dancing. So we joined the guys standing along the wall. A few girls came by, and we would talk for a little bit, and then they would move on.
Finally, there was this short girl that came along, with a slight limp, and we talked with her. I told her a little about myself and she told me a little about herself. She said that she worked at the U.S.O. in downtown San Francisco and attended the University of San Francisco. I asked her to dance, and we went out on the dance floor. Then we sat down at a small table and I told her more about myself, that I grew up on a farm in the eastern plains of Colorado (actually I said that our house was on a big hill—this comes up in a later story). I said that I had attended Otero Junior College and the University of Colorado and that I had volunteered with the Big Brothers.
During our conversation, she told me that she needed to go to the rest room. So I waited around for a short while. I was not sure if this was just an excuse to move on to a new guy. She came back just as I was about to move on.
We continued our conversation. Finally someone came by and said the dance was closing. So we headed toward the exit of the room.
Near the door by the stairs we said our final goodbye, and as an afterthought I asked her for her phone number. I expected her to brush it off, but she said sure! Then I had to admit that I didn’t have a paper or pencil. She jumped into action, disappeared for a moment, and returned with a scrap of paper that she had written her work phone number on. I put it into my wallet, went out into the rain, and headed home to Vallejo with my friends.
Marilyn’s version:
My maternal grandmother, my mom’s mother, had died just before Christmas in 1970. I had not been able to go to her funeral, but I did join the family for the last Christmas in the big house at 120 East Palm Avenue in Redlands, California, just before it was to be cleaned out and sold. It was a very sad Christmas. I had lived in my grandparents’ house from 1952 to 1957, during a very difficult time in my childhood.
When I started first grade in Los Angeles, California, in 1951, my parents had enrolled me in Webster Elementary School, which was our assigned public school. I attended classes there from September to November. After Thanksgiving, I started in a new school, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt School for Handicapped Children, also in Los Angeles. And after Easter vacation, my mom moved into my grandparents’ house with me and my two little sisters, and I finished first grade at Kingsbury Elementary School in Redlands, California, in June of 1952.
Why so many schools? The problem was that I had a slight physical handicap, so I could not keep up with the other children on the playground at Webster. The principal and my teacher met with my parents and explained that I had to go to a special school designed for people like me. When I got to Roosevelt, however, I was far past what the other first graders in my group were learning. (All the children in my assigned group had some kind of paralysis — mostly polio or cerebral palsy.) The children in my class were still struggling through books I had finished in my first weeks at Webster. I usually got my assignments done quickly, and then moved forward in the book, so I was never on the right page when the teacher checked on me. I was disrupting the classroom teaching schedule.
That, however, was not my only problem at the school. All the children at Roosevelt were grouped into “cottages” according to their disabilities, and when I made friends with a blind fourth grade student named Bonnie, and we invented a game in which we pretended to be birds, which we played day after day, I was definitely breaking the school rules which segregated the children according to their handicaps. The principal had a meeting with my parents. I was a highly disruptive student, and they wanted me out of the school immediately.
And so my mother decided to take me to Redlands, a place where she had lived, a place where she knew the schools and the teachers, and a place where I could finish first grade in the very same school her little brothers had attended.
I did well, and the next autumn I started the second grade at Kingsbury School and made good progress in the first semester. Sometime in the early spring, however, my grandmother and I caught a bad case of the flu. We were both in bed for weeks. When we were finally able to get physical checkups, it turned out that she had suffered a mild stroke, and it turned out that I had not grown in either height or weight since my last physical checkup one year earlier. So we both were recovering invalids together, and that’s when I really learned to do simple hand sewing and knitting, sometimes sitting near my grandmother.
It took several years for the medical profession to figure out that I had an allergy to milk, or more specifically, to the sugar that is in milk, and that I could not eat the standard school cafeteria lunch, which always included a small package of milk that the cafeteria ladies made everyone drink—no wasting food! When I finally went back to school in fifth grade, I carried a lunchbox, with juice in the thermos, and ate at the picnic tables next to the playground, with a few other children who had brought food from home. I and my sisters and my mother lived in my grandparents’ house until my 12th birthday, and my father visited us on alternate Thursdays and weekends.
Saying goodbye to my grandmother and her house during Christmas 1970 was like saying goodbye to my childhood. I was very sad when I returned to my job in San Francisco. And then my boss at the U.S.O., Miss Beverly Fox, came to the office in late January with the news that a fairly important government official was donating (or appropriating, don’t remember which) the money for a big U.S.O. Valentine’s Day Ball, for all the servicemen in the Bay Area.
It turned out that Valentine’s Day came on a Sunday that year, and we couldn’t get a venue for that day, or for Saturday either. So we settled on the Friday before Valentine’s Day. The only large venue we could get on such short notice was a place in Oakland. I think it was a Masonic Lodge with a large ballroom on the second floor.
I was taking M.A. classes in English part-time at the University of San Francisco, and I really didn’t want to go to this event and have to pretend to be cheerful. I just wanted to stay home quietly and study, but my boss told me that I had to come along, to help her set up and take down the decorations. As we were driving to Oakland in her car, which was packed full of boxes, she off-handedly said that there were a lot of young single women coming to the event who were not U.S.O. volunteers—secretaries, nurses, teachers—and the standard U.S.O. rule about never giving out your phone number was not in effect for this event. So, she said jokingly, if I met anyone I really liked, I could give him my phone number! (“Yeah, sure,” I thought. I really was not in the mood for a party.)
At the venue, the table cloths had already been laid out, and the catered food and beverages came in soon after. The D.J. came in and got the sound system set up. All we had to do was place the decorations and hang the U.S.O. banners.
The early part of the event was nothing special. I danced with one or two guys, went around the room and talked to a few others, decided my earrings were too painful and took them off, checked the catering tables (as soon as the food ran out, I was supposed to tell my boss), went around the room again, talking to the guys, danced a little more… a long night. Finally we got to within an hour of closing time. Hurray! I would go around the edges of the room one last time, and then I would sit down. I wanted to rest a little before we had to pack up the decorations and close down the venue. There was a long check list we had to go through.
So I set off to “work the perimeter” of the room again. There weren’t too many guys standing around, but there was one group of four sailors that I hadn’t seen before. So I worked my way over to them, greeted them, asked their names, where they were from, the usual ice-breakers. Three of the guys introduced themselves, and I welcomed them, and pointed out where the refreshments were. Then I asked the fourth guy, who was very quiet, who he was. He said, “I’m just the driver.” The other guys laughingly said they needed one person who was going to be steady enough to get them home, and the quiet guy agreed with them. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but as I remember, he used a reference to the Odyssey. And then he apologized for it.
“Well,” I thought, “This is interesting. He at least remembers reading that.” So while the other guys went off to join the party, I stayed and talked with the quiet guy for a few more minutes. He asked me to dance, and then we sat down at one of the small tables around the edge of the dance floor. I checked my watch. Three quarters of an hour until closing time. I didn’t have to do any more rounds; if we ran out of food it didn’t matter, and there probably wouldn’t be any new guys coming in. I had probably greeted the last group. The quiet guy and I chatted for about fifteen minutes, then I decided I needed to take a restroom break so that I would be ready for the closing work that I would have to do after the party shut down. (The restrooms would be locked at that time.) I excused myself, slipped into the ladies’ restroom, and hurried back to the table. The guy was standing near the table, looking around, but he sat down again when I came up. We continued talking until the closing announcement came. I stood up and walked with the quiet guy towards the door. About halfway across the room, he asked me for my telephone number. I didn’t have a pen and paper, and neither did he, but a soldier standing near us heard our predicament, and he tapped my shoulder and said, “I have a pen and paper.” I looked at him gratefully. He was a short fellow, with carefully combed dark hair, and the name tag on his army shirt said PARISI. The name of the original tribe that settled Paris—maybe a good omen! I took his notebook and pen, wrote down my work phone number, tore out the page, and returned his things to him. I then turned around and gave my phone number to the quiet guy, Gary Pickens.
The crowd left, my boss and I collected and packed up all our decorations, banners, and other assorted bits and pieces, made sure the (pre-paid) caterers and the D.J. collected all their things, paid the janitor who would be cleaning the space, paid the night watchman, noted down those amounts on a form, filled out some paperwork about the exact time when we left the space (to be finished at the office later) and loaded up the car and went back to San Francisco.
I really didn’t know if I would ever see Gary Pickens, the quiet guy, again, but I knew I liked him.
Our first date
Gary’s version:
I was busy the week following the dance, but during the second week I called Marilyn and explained who I was, and I asked if she would like to go on a date with me on the following weekend. She said YES!
I was to meet her at her desk at 5:00 p.m. on the next Friday, on the second floor of the downtown U.S.O. I was nervous about driving into downtown San Francisco, so I took the Greyhound Bus to the depot about two blocks from her office on Market Street. I walked to her office, past a lot of construction for the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), went up to the second floor, and asked where Marilyn worked. A tall, kind lady showed me Marilyn’s desk, but she was not there. The kind lady said Marilyn was probably in the copy room and would be back shortly, and if she saw Marilyn she would tell her that I was waiting. Shortly after that Marilyn came out, grabbed her coat and purse, and we headed out for our first date in downtown San Francisco.
During our first date, we walked down Market Street to the famous turn-around platform for the Powell Street cable car, an iconic spot in San Francisco, and we saw a book store that Marilyn liked, and several little restaurants and diners where she would grab a bite to eat for lunch. We stopped and had supper in one of the diners, but I don’t remember which one. Most of all we talked. I enjoyed it. Marilyn was interesting to talk to and I liked her company. And she paid for herself, which was great for a guy like me, who was very short on money!
Marilyn’s version:
I didn’t really expect to hear from Gary Pickens after I gave him my phone number, but I hoped I would. I had enjoyed our first meeting, and I thought he was very nice. But I knew that most military guys did not have much time to socialize, and he was posted outside of San Francisco, so he would have to make an effort to see me again. I was pleasantly surprised when he called, and we agreed to see each other again. Nothing fancy; he would meet me at the U.S.O. and we would work it out from there. I had gone on a few casual dates with guys, just walking around and seeing the sights. I didn’t really expect much, but I did think Gary was very nice.
So we met at the U.S.O., and he got to see the rather spartan office where I worked, on the second floor of a converted warehouse at 1017 Market Street. We walked down to the corner of Market and Powell, and explored Powell Street up to Geary. Somewhere we stopped in a little restaurant, Greek, I think, and had supper. (I had a little book that listed all the places in San Francisco where two people could eat for $10 or less. Most of the places were small ethnic restaurants. We tried a lot of them.)
As we continued dating, I began to like Gary more and more. One of the things that impressed me was that he didn’t mind being adventurous about his activities, or his food requirements. And even if things went wrong, we somehow made the most of it. Of course I did not know this at the beginning, so I was fairly cautious in choosing what we did together.
Marilyn invites Gary to her place
Gary’s version:
For the first few dates, Marilyn and I met at the U.S.O. downtown. I even got so I could drive in the city. Then, one day in March, Marilyn asked me to her place, at 673 42nd Avenue in San Francisco, and she explained how to get there.
So the next weekend I went out to the house where she was living, at the edge of western San Francisco in the Richmond District, not far from the Golden Gate Park and the Golden Gate Bridge.
It was a pretty part of the city. The houses were not connected to each other, the way they were in other areas, and they were painted in light pastel colors. Each house was a slightly different color, with a garage on the lower level. To get into the house you had to climb a flight of stairs, going up about a half story to the front door.
Inside the house was dark, with nice furnishings. I usually met Marilyn in the front room. Sometimes we ate or packed picnics in the small kitchen, behind the dining room. Mrs. K., the owner of the house, slept at the very back, looking out to the ocean.
Mrs K. was an immigrant from Russia and she had many stories about her escape from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, when she was a teenager. She also had a lot of stories about Russian sailors coming into San Francisco. She was also very protective of Marilyn. She made sure she did not stay out too late and that she or her boyfriends did not make too much noise.
The streets here were very broad and very well maintained. About two blocks to the south (downhill) was Golden Gate Park and Fulton Street, where Marilyn caught the bus going into work. About two blocks two blocks to the north (uphill) was Geary Street. She always took the Geary Street bus home. Geary Street had a strange configuration—at 42nd Street it split in two, and in the center island was a small grocery store and a fire station. After work each day, Marilyn would buy a small bag of groceries and carry it down the hill to her home.
The best part about this place was that it was very close to the beach. The worst part was that it was the beach in San Francisco—cold, windy, rainy, and foggy for most of the year. If you got into the water, it was very cold, fresh from the Alaska coast and the Arctic Ocean.
Marilyn’s version:
After I had gone out with Gary twice, I caught a bad cold. It was March, and the weather was pretty nasty. I had to call off a date. Finally, when I was feeling better, about March 13, 1971, I called him and asked him to please take me over to the University of San Francisco library so that I could return some books. I just didn’t feel energetic enough to do it by bus. So that weekend Gary came over to my place for the first time. I remember that when he saw me he said, “Wow. You really have been sick.” I guess maybe he thought that I was trying avoid him. But he took me to the library, we saw a little of the campus, and we got something to eat. I was really wiped out, and he was very helpful. After that, he came to the house quite a few times.
Mrs. Kuznetsov, (a.k.a. Mrs. K.) liked Gary, but once she said she thought I was seeing a bit too much of him. I realized that we were taking over the space where she wanted to have her friends and family visit, so I tried to do things away from the house. I didn’t tell Gary anything, but I tried to figure out more places to explore. (Fortunately Gary liked seeing new places, and it was easy to figure out adventures with him.)
Mrs. K.’s father had worked for the Trans-Siberian Railroad in the last years of Czarist Russia. He was stationed at Vladivostok, at the Pacific Terminus of the railroad. When the Russian Revolution broke out and Czarist officials were being purged, Mrs. K.’s father bought tickets for her and her brother—ages fourteen and sixteen—on a ship bound for San Francisco. A couple of her brother’s friends also travelled with them, and when they got to San Francisco, they all lived together. The boys found jobs and a small rental house, and Mrs. K. cooked, sewed, and kept the home running for everyone. She remembered her first time going to the market in San Francisco and buying some sausages that looked just like what they had at home in Russia–but these were Mexican sausages, so spicy that they were almost inedible! After that, she always asked for a small taste of anything before she bought it.
Mrs. K. had a daughter and two young grandchildren who often visited. The children were Mark (informally called Markuska) and Lara (informally called Larissa). I thought that Larissa was a nice variant of Laura, or Laure, the name of one of my French great-grandmothers. Later, I chose to give that name to my own daughter. I really admired Mrs. K. and the courage she had shown in her life. I felt very lucky to rent a room in her house.
The Cliff House 
The Cliff House Burned in 1907
First attempted kiss
Gary’s version:
I had picked up Marilyn at her place. She was still recovering from the flu, and we were staying near the area where she lived. On this day we were considering lunch at the Cliff House on Point Lobo Avenue. It was mid-afternoon, so we thought it might not be too busy or too expensive. But we were wrong on both counts!
We decided to just explore the area. The Cliff House was originally built in the mid 19th century. It overlooked the ruins of the Sutro Baths. A trail led down to the bath house ruins; we followed it, and then we found another trail leading along the cliff. It went through tunnels and twisted around sharp bends, with the Pacific Ocean always on the left, roaring and sending up large plumes of spray towards us. At the trail’s end, a big cave went into the face of the cliff, and a patch of grass lay just beyond it, overlooking the ocean. We stopped here and sat down on the grass, discussing whether to explore further, or to head back. During this discussion, Marilyn and I were sitting close together, and I decided it would be a good time to kiss her. So I puckered up and leaned over to give her a kiss on her lips. It was a spur of the moment impulse. But I was getting so I really liked her, and her lips were right there, just a short distance away. She saw it coming and turned her head, so I aborted my attempt. It was a number of dates later before I tried it again.
Marilyn’s version:
It was a sunny day. At the end of the trail we were sitting together on the wild grass overlooking the shoreline, just beyond the cave, watching the waves crest and break as they came in. Somehow Gary found the ocean, and the waves, fascinating. I remember thinking that this was strange for a sailor, because he saw the ocean all the time. Now, knowing him better, I think that the wide expanse of the ocean below us, stretching unbroken to the horizon, reminded him of the similar wide expanse of prairie in his home in eastern Colorado. Besides, he was still in training, and he had not yet been to sea, so the ocean was still new to him.
We were sitting there, watching the waves, and then as we stood up, he bent over to kiss me. I saw it coming and bent my head, because although I liked Gary, I didn’t think I knew him very well yet. Then we walked back to the car, and went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken for some food.
History of the Cliff House: https://cliffhouse.com/history/
Wikipedia on the Cliff House: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_House,_San_Francisco
About Sutro Baths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Baths
Hiking guide: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/northern-california/san-francisco/aboveground-cave-san-francisco/
The time we almost drowned
Gary’s version:
One weekend, we decided to explore the coast south of where Marilyn lived in San Francisco. We packed a picnic and then we headed south along California Highway 1. We got as far as Santa Cruz, where there was a famous boardwalk with a big amusement park on it. But by the time we got there, it was almost closing time, so we decided not to buy tickets. So we turned around and headed back towards San Francisco.
On the way back, we spotted a stretch of beautiful, nearly deserted beach. Only a scattering of people were there. So we decided to stop, lay out our blankets, and have our picnic. By this time a chilly offshore wind was picking up and a light mist was coming down. So we covered ourselves with an extra blanket, like a tent.
We ate our sandwiches and talked under our improvised tent for some time. Finally, it was getting dark, so we decided we should pack up and go back to San Francisco.
When we uncovered our heads, we discovered that we were almost marooned on a small island of sand, nearly surrounded by water. Everyone else had already left the beach and there was only a small peninsula of dry sand that would let us get back to the car. And our little island would be covered by water shortly! We hurriedly packed up our things and drove back to San Francisco in the cold, damp fog.
Marilyn’s version:
I remember it pretty much the same way that Gary does! We were bundled up in our warm clothes for this expedition, because it was springtime in northern California, and we were getting to the time of year when the icebergs in Alaska were slowly melting after the winter snows, and the Pacific Ocean currents made the northern California coastal weather very chilly. Even under the shelter of the thick woolly navy-issue blanket that Gary brought from his car we felt cold.
All in all, we were pretty lucky to stick our heads out after our picnic and notice our predicament before we were cut off by the rising tide. We probably could have sloshed our way to safety, since the water creeping up the beach was not yet very deep, but we would have been very wet and uncomfortable on the long drive back to our homes in San Francisco and Vallejo. It was a disaster that didn’t quite happen. Somehow when Gary and I were together, even our mistakes turned out to be okay.
History of the Boardwalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Beach_Boardwalk
Website of the Boardwalk: https://beachboardwalk.com
Marilyn and Gary in the Miss Bay Area U.S.O. contest
Marilyn’s Version:
The Miss Bay Area U.S.O. Contest was a publicity idea.
There was a growing anti-war sentiment in the United States in 1971, and much of it was centered in the Bay Area. Protests were happening across the country, and on April 24, 1971, in San Francisco itself, there was a Peace March down Geary Street. It was one of many demonstrations led by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The U.S.O. main office in New York was worried about the image of the U.S.O. in the Bay Area, and wanted some sort of event that would showcase the support of the local civilians for the U.S.O. and the servicemen.
A member of the U.S.O. Board of Directors from New York had been consulted, and somehow the idea of a Miss Bay Area U.S.O. contest was born. The young lady who won the contest would have speaking engagements and television and radio coverage. My boss, Miss Beverley Fox, decided that she wanted a volunteer named Marsha, a tall, athletic, articulate, and nice-looking young lady, to be Miss Bay Area U.S.O., but we had to put together a contest first. Somehow I was pulled in to be one of the contestants. There was one for each military base on the Bay Area U.S.O. Mobile Units list, with elections (worked behind the scenes by Miss Fox) at each event for a month. I was Miss Travis, representing the Medical Evacuation Hospital there.
I needed a military escort for the final event at the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco. It was a formal U.S.O. dance, open to servicemen of all the military branches, so I invited Gary. He had not yet proposed, and I was not sure we would have a future together, but at least we would each have a formal photograph to remember each other by.
Marsha was Miss Presidio, and it was certainly no surprise when she won the final contest for Miss Bay Area U.S.O. and headed off for a round of interviews and personal appearances.
Gary’s Version:
In early May, Marilyn asked me to escort her to the Miss Bay Area U.S.O. Ball at the Presidio Army Base. I was not too thrilled about going, especially when she told me I would have to wear my official dress uniform of Navy Blues. But I accepted her invitation, because it seemed important to her.
On the evening of the event, I picked her up and we drove to the Presidio Army Base, found the special events hall, and a parking spot, and went into the hall. We danced for a while and then Marilyn had to attend to some administrative tasks. Finally, we lined up for the grand march for the final crowning of the winner of the Miss Bay Area U.S.O. contest. After this we were free to go home.
Marilyn looked great and we had a good time! She was not expecting to win, and she didn’t, but we got a good photo out of it. And the headshot that was taken for the contest before the final Ball was one of my favorite pictures of her.
History of the Presidio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_San_Francisco
The protest in San Francisco: https://richmondsfblog.com/2011/02/04/flashback-to-1971-156000-march-to-protest-the-vietnam-war/
Concert at the Stern Grove Festival
Gary’s version:
One Sunday, I picked up Marilyn after her church and headed south along I-280. She attended the Église Notre Dame Des Victoires, the French church, just outside of Chinatown. It was founded in 1856 to serve the French Catholic immigrants during the Gold Rush. (Grant Avenue was originally called DuPont Street.) Her great-grandmother, who had worked as a seamstress at the City of Paris Dry Goods Company, had attended the church years earlier.
We found a big tree root where we could sit in the shade on a hill overlooking the orchestra. They were playing the the Tchaikovsky Overture of 1812 and some other Tchaikovsky pieces. Kids were playing in the trees around us and Hare Krishna beggars and hippies were circulating through the crowd, which was pretty common in those days. It was a beautiful afternoon.
In the week that followed I could not get my mind off of Marilyn. Several times I thought about asking her to marry me, but then I would remember that I was headed to Vietnam shortly and it would not be a good time to ask. Finally, I decided I would not ask.
Marilyn’s version:
I had been to the Stern Grove Festival the year before, and I knew it was free, but you had to be there early to get a good place to sit. Somehow Gary and I couldn’t get there early, so the folding chairs were all taken when we showed up. We had not brought a blanket to sit on the ground, and the best grass was pretty much taken, so we found a seat at the edge of the area, on some roots.
It was a beautiful day in summer in San Francisco. I was happy to share the concert with someone who could appreciate it. I had gone with Gary to a classical music concert at the Marines Memorial Hall a few weeks earlier, and he had thought it was “really neat.”
Most of the guys I had fleetingly met through the U.S.O. would have thought that such a thing was “really boring.” Which was probably a small part of the reason why I thought that Gary Pickens was someone very special.
Stern Grove Festival: https://www.sterngrove.org/
Église Notre Dame Des Victoires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame-des-Victoires,_San_Francisco
Mount Tamalpais and a Proposal
Gary’s version:
Again, I was picking up Marilyn after church, where she sang in the choir. I had arrived a little early so I walked into Chinatown and got us two Orange Julius drinks. We always loved them. Then we drove north of the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge to Highway 1. We followed it up to Point Reyes, and then headed back to San Francisco, using back roads. I had heard about Mount Tamalpais and I thought it would be a pretty place to watch the sun set into the Pacific Ocean. So we started making our way toward it.
We finally found the entrance to the park, but either it was going to close shortly, or they charged too much. Anyway, we didn’t go to the top to see the sunset. (Marilyn remembers this as the Fourth of July weekend. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it was just a few weeks before she left San Francisco.)
So, I turned around and we headed back to San Francisco. Along the way I spotted a nice picturesque spot to stop and talk and kiss (by this time, we had got very good at kissing) my girlfriend. We hadn’t been there for more than a couple of hours when it slipped out. I asked, “Will you marry me?”
I expected that Marilyn would say no, or that I would have to talk to her parents, or that she didn’t want to think about it until I returned from Vietnam.
But I had just barely finished the question and she said YES! I was overjoyed at the prospect, but also a bit worried. So we spent the next several hours talking and planning our life together.
It is now approaching 50 years that we have been together and I have enjoyed every minute of this life.
Marilyn’s version:
Perhaps I should explain that I had joined the choir at Notre-Dame des Victoires church not just because my great-grandmother Marie Marguerite Remarque (who was born in Rochester, New York, to French immigrant parents from Alsace-Lorraine, migrated to San Francisco as a teenager, and took the last name Rodust after her marriage) had attended the church during her long life in the Bay Area, but also because I wanted to continue improving my French. In our family my mother was the only parent who went to church, and she took me, and my sisters, to the Episcopal/Anglican church wherever we lived.
However, although I had been baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church, I had attended Catholic schools since eighth grade, so I was familiar with the Catholic services. (Just for what it’s worth, when he was 19 my father had considered becoming a Catholic priest, but by the time he met my mother, when he was 26, he had decided he was an agnostic. He spent many years exploring “alternative religions” during the time I was growing up in San Diego. As a result, I had pretty flexible ideas about religion.)
It was the Fourth of July, 1971, Independence Day—a day when everything would probably be closed, except for the businesses in Chinatown. When Gary turned up with two cups of Orange Julius to drink, I decided that maybe some bean rolls would make a good addition for a picnic lunch. We walked a few blocks up Grant Street, past the entrance to China Town, and found an open bakery, and bought half a dozen small biscuits with a paste of mashed-up beans, slightly sweet, inside. A bit more nutritious than jelly doughnuts, and definitely less sticky.
Chinatown was one of our favorite places to buy snacks after church. It was close by and inexpensive, and Gary did not seem put off by the difference in culture — dead chickens hanging by their necks at the entrance to a shop, for example. His openness to other cultures, and his interest in other ways of doing things, no matter how strange, was one of the things I liked most about him.
On one date a few weeks earlier, we had gone into a Japanese restaurant that had no menus written in English. We had ordered by pointing to different dishes that were on display, and we sat down to eat with a sense of adventure, with not the slightest idea of what we were getting into. We were the only English speakers in the little cafe. Some people might have thought that was weird. Gary thought it was cool.
On our Fourth of July adventure, as I remember, we drove over to Mount Tamalpais and found that the access road was closed. We drove around some more and found a good picnic spot. We spread a blanket on the ground and had our picnic. We talked a lot, and when it began getting dark, we thought we might find a place where we might see some fireworks. I suggested someplace—don’t remember where—and we drove to it. There were fireworks, as I remember, but in the place where we had managed to find a parking spot they were hidden by the trees. We decided to stay in the car because the mosquitoes were pretty fierce. Some talking and smooching followed, and then Gary said, “Will you marry me?” And I said “Yes.”
I had made up my mind several weeks earlier that if he ever asked, that would be my answer. I did not expect him to ask, but if he did ask, I would accept. I felt that Gary Pickens was a friend whom I would want to be with for the rest of my life. I have never changed that opinion.
Orange Julius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Julius
Mount Tamalpais State Park website: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=471
Wikipedia about Mount Tamalpais: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tamalpais
The Ice Follies
Snoopy, the capering canine of the Peanuts family, comes to life in three dimensions as star of this musical comedy-on-ice special. A live, skating Snoopy solos on ice, appearing with the stars of the 1971 Shipstad and Johnson Ice Follies during the show presented at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Featured are Follies performers Mr. Frick, Karen Kresge, The Scarecrows, Biddy and Baddy, Ricky Ingelsi, Richard Dwyer, Susan Berens, Ron and Cindy Kauffman, Jay Humphrey, Atoy Wilson, and the Ice Follettes.
Gary’s Version
I don’t really remember the show; I am sure it was the usual impressive Ice Follies spectacle. (Snoopy was the featured “guest star.”) As we were walking back to the car, however, there was a curb that neither Marilyn nor I saw. I stepped down, and almost fell. Marilyn had stepped with her weight on her weak leg, and she fell down very hard, and I felt really sorry for her. We had only a few more weeks together, and she was limping with a sore ankle the whole time we had left. I really hoped it would not affect her planned trip to Europe.
Marilyn’s Version
Of course I said yes when Gary invited me to the Ice Follies. He had finally popped the question, and we were officially engaged. (I had only about two weeks left in San Francisco, because I was classified as a temporary short-term staff member at the U.S.O., and I had to leave before I would become classified as a regular staff member. If that happened they would be legally required to give me health insurance, which they could not do.) I wanted to make the most of the time that Gary and I had together.
The Ice Follies show was, I am sure, spectacular. But what I remember most is the fall I took as we were leaving. I turned the ankle on my “bad foot” and I had a hard time putting any weight on it. After Gary took me home, I got a long, cotton-and-elastic Ace bandage to wrap my ankle, but it still hurt to walk for quite a long time afterwards. My mom came to help me pack up my things at Mrs. K.’s house two weeks later, because she wanted to meet Gary and because I was still having a hard time. I wore the Ace bandage for about six weeks, and finally stopped wearing it somewhere in France.
Gary meets Marilyn’s mom
Gary’s version:
It was a very sad day. Marilyn was going home. I had several more months in the Bay Area, then I would be off to Vietnam. I remember that Mary Belle Margutti, Marilyn’s mom, came up from San Diego to meet me and to help Marilyn move out of her room and return home. I came over to San Francisco at the end of the day and helped to carry things and clean up at Mrs. K.’s house. I don’t remember much more than that.
Marilyn’s version:
The time came for me to leave San Francisco just a few weeks after Gary’s proposal. I wanted very much for my mother to meet Gary. I intended to marry him, and I wanted her to know him. When she phoned to ask about my moving plans, it seemed like a good chance for me to ask her to come to meet Gary. (She quickly called her sister, my Aunt Betty Rollins, in Berkeley, to ask her to meet my young man and size him up. Aunt Betty did so, immediately, calling that very same day with an invitation to visit her on the coming Sunday. The weekend after that was when I had my fall at the Ice Follies, just before I moved.)
On the day before I moved, just before the last weekend of July, Mother flew from San Diego to San Francisco on a Wednesday and spent the night with me in the double bed I was using at Mrs. K’s house. In the morning she helped me to clean out the room I had rented from Mrs. K. before we flew back to San Diego.
I had already packed my clothes, and Mother helped me do the final cleaning of the room—unmaking the bed, putting the bedding into a suitcase, sweeping, dusting and polishing. When we got through, she said that Mrs. K. probably would not have to do a thing! (Mrs. K. had a nephew who would be moving into the room soon.)
Gary arrived during the last hour or so, after his classes at Mare Island. His job was to meet my mother, do any heavy lifting, and pick up anything that needed to be thrown away. He put all the throwaways into a big bag, and he later took the bag back to the dumpsters at his base. We did not want to fill Mrs. K.’s trash cans. Mother seemed to be very impressed with his quiet efficiency.
As I said before, Gary had already met my mother’s oldest sister and her family when we had gone across the bay for a Sunday visit in Berkeley, where my Aunt Betty and Uncle Fitz Rollins lived. Some of their grandchildren, my cousin Hugh’s children, happened to be visiting at the time. Gary and I attended a service at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church with the family, and then went to the house at 1032 Park Hills Road for dinner afterwards. The three grandchildren, ages from about 3 to 8 years old, entertained us with silly noises, making faces, and asking questions in guessing games they made up during dinner. Gary took it all in his stride. (My aunt, who was also my godmother, said that the experience would “teach Gary what it’s like to be in our family.” Gary said it seemed very normal.)
Gary visits Marilyn’s family
Gary’s version:
After Marilyn had left San Francisco, she invited me to visit her parents in San Diego on the weekend of August 14-15 1971. So I started preparing for the trip down. I decided to go by Greyhound. That way, I thought, I could see much of the central part of California and the Los Angeles area. I bought a round trip ticket to San Diego, and I stayed overnight in the Service Mens’ YMCA, which I had visited several times while I was in boot camp.
Marilyn and her mother picked me up on Saturday morning at the YMCA and drove me to their home. It was a tall house, at 1405 West Pennsylvania Avenue, high on the top of the hills over looking San Diego Bay, not too far from where I had gone to Boot Camp and Basic Electronics School. In fact, while I was in Basic Electronics School I had ridden a bike up to the Mission Hills neighborhood near the house. I learned later that you could hear, on quiet days at about 4:00 a.m., the Drill Sargent drilling the new troops at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at the bottom of the hill.
We parked in the garage of the house and took the elevator to the third floor, where I met Marilyn’s dad, Victor Mario Margutti. He was a medical doctor with a private practice in Mission Hills, near Presidio Park. It had been one of my favorite parks while I was attending Basic Electronics School.
After we got to the house, Marilyn went to her bedroom for a few minutes and Marilyn’s parents spoke with me in the living room on the top floor. Mary Belle, Marilyn’s mother, asked me for some help in the kitchen, cutting up some health food vegetable snacks, broccoli, carrots and pumpkin seeds, as I remember.
While we were in the kitchen, she told me not to ask Marilyn’s father for permission to marry. She said to just tell him that I was going to marry Marilyn, and leave it at that. We took the snacks to the dining table, and Marilyn’s mother left. Then I spoke with Marilyn’s father as I was instructed to do. I don’t remember the situation exactly, but he accepted it.
The family had a great view of the harbor from their living room widows. In one direction you could see the Pacific Ocean, the city of Coronado with its Naval Air Station, the Hotel Del Coronado and the beach, Point Loma, the Navy Boot Camp, the Marine Corps Boot Camp and Lindbergh Field, the airport. You could also see San Diego Harbor, from the Coronado Bridge to where it opened into the Pacific Ocean. From the side window, you could see downtown San Diego.
During this time I also met Elizabeth, Marilyn’s youngest sister, who was attending the University of California at San Diego, which was near La Jolla. Her other sister Laura, they explained, was going to college somewhere else, I don’t remember where. Elizabeth and Marilyn showed me the roof of the house, where Elizabeth and Laura enjoyed sun bathing. (For some reason a lot of Navy helicopters and planes would start flying over the house when they did this.)
After a while, Marilyn and I escaped to where she was now sleeping. (We did some smooching, but not quite as much as I wanted.) She was now staying in a small bedroom built over a former balcony on the side of the house (on the left side of the house pictured above). Her old room had become her mother’s workroom since Marilyn had moved out. Marilyn rummaged around in her old room and showed me some of her keepsakes, including Peter, a doll that her mother made for her when she was very young, which she later gave to our daughter. Peter was made from sewing scraps; he was put together right after World War II, when there were very few toys available in the stores, and he was Marilyn’s only doll for quite a while. (We probably still have him around here somewhere in our house in Texas.) She also showed me some of the books that she liked and had studied when she was going to the San Diego College for Women, now the University of San Diego.
Finally, evening came and we went to a restaurant that the family knew well. We all climbed into their big Lincoln Continental car and drove down to the Aztec Cafe, or Cafe Azteca, in Old Town San Diego. I had no idea what to order, and I think Marilyn’s dad, or maybe Elizabeth, ordered something for me. Marilyn’s dad chatted with the owner while Marilyn and her sister chatted with a waiter who had gone to school with them. The meal was very good, especially when considering what I was normally eating at that time in a Navy mess hall.
After we finished eating, Elizabeth and Marilyn took me back down to the Service Mens’ YMCA for a night’s sleep before getting on the bus and returning to the NTDS School at the Navy base at Mare Island in Vallejo. Let me just say that I decided on this trip that taking the bus was not really a good way to see the country. I did see a lot of California, but we never really got going fast. As soon as the bus would get going, we would start slowing down for the next stop.
Azteca Cafe: http://www.aztecamex.com/
Marilyn’s version:
After I left San Francisco, I had a few weeks before starting the European trip I was planning with my sister Elizabeth and her friend Darlene. I had been wanting to visit Europe ever since I had been turned down for a French study abroad program at the San Diego College for Women.
I had good grades and good French language skills when I had applied to study abroad in 1969, but the program absolutely would not, under any circumstances whatsoever, accept a physically handicapped person like me. I checked several other study abroad programs, but they all had the exact same rules about handicapped people. There was no way ever on earth that I could possibly go to Europe, I was told. I should just forget about it.
So of course (in my usual stubborn way) I tried to figure out something to prove the experts wrong. Maybe I couldn’t do a study abroad program, and maybe I would have to change my M.A. field of study, but I could at least visit France and Europe on my own. (At the time I felt that it was necessary to get an M.A. degree in order to become a teacher, because I would need to be more highly qualified than an average person in order to get an average person’s job.)
Thus, while I was working in San Francisco, as well as working on an M.A. — in English now — I was also saving my money and trying to hone my French skills, hoping to make my European travel dream come true. Then, just a few months before I was finishing my stint at the U.S.O., Trans World Airlines (T.W.A.) announced special low fares to Europe for young adult travelers between the ages of 21 and 25. I was going to be 26 on my next birthday, so I decided to make plans to go to Europe as soon as my job ended. Maybe I could not study abroad in a formal program, but at least I could visit Europe, test my language skills, and prove that I could survive! I told my mother of my plans, and she came up to San Francisco to help me get my passport.
Then my sister Elizabeth phoned me quite unexpectedly, and asked if she and her friend Darlene could possibly accompany me to Europe. After some discussion, I understood that Darlene’s parents would not approve this trip unless their daughter and Elizabeth travelled with me as a “responsible adult” overseeing their adventure. So I accepted them as traveling companions. We all bought A.Y.H. (American Youth Hostel) memberships, which allowed us to stay in affiliated hostels in Europe. We were to leave in August, about two weeks before my 26th birthday, which came on September 7, 1971.
I very much wanted Gary to visit my family in San Diego before we started on this adventure in Europe. I thought that it was important for him to see me in my “natural habitat,” where I had grown up. As I have explained in an earlier part of this story, my parents — especially my father — had always tried to keep me from socializing with non-family members. Marriage and a “normal life” had certainly never even been considered as a possibility for me. So I thought that it was important for my parents to see my guy and accept him as a future son-in-law. And since I did not know where Gary would be stationed when I returned, it seemed best to ask him come to San Diego — even if it was just for a very brief visit — before I left.
To make a long story short, after Gary’s visit to San Diego, my family seemed to accept the idea that I would become a married woman after I came back from Europe and after Gary had finished his first overseas assignment.
My family and my future husband had all made it through the visit rather well, I thought. I would plan the wedding — I wanted something very simple — when I got back from Europe.
Marilyn meets Gary’s Family
Gary’s version:
After I finished the NTDS School at Mare Island, my next assignment was to be on the USS Chicago, CG-11, which was stationed somewhere in the Western Pacific. Before I joined the Chicago, I went on leave for several weeks, during a period that would include Thanksgiving Day on November 25, 1971.
As I was leaving Vallejo, I needed to stop at the drugstore and pick up some of my last photos. I had already packed up the car and I headed out at about noon to meet my brother Kenny at the airport. When I stopped at the drug store on my way to the airport, there were no parking spaces available on the street. I drove around the block several times, but nothing opened up. Finally, I decided that I would have to park in a no parking zone. I thought I could get the photos quickly and be back in the car before the police could catch me.
I was wrong, of course. When I got back there was a ticket on my window. I grabbed it and put it under the seat. I was thinking that this would probably be my very last time in this town. If the local authorities wanted me, they would have to go to Vietnam, or wherever the USS Chicago happened to be. Plus, I was already going to be late in picking up my brother Kenny at the San Francisco International Airport.
After that, I just forgot about the ticket. (My dad got a notice about it in the mail while I was overseas and he wrote letters to the city, and even to Ronald Reagan, who was the California governor at that time, disputing the ticket. Eventually my dad paid the ticket for me, but he had a long and interesting correspondence before that happened. He even got a personal reply from Reagan.)
I arrived at the airport a little late, and I went in to find Kenny. I checked the gate, and he was not there. I went down to the luggage pickup, and he was not there. Hmmm… where could he be? And then I heard an announcement, “Gary Pickens, please meet your brother at the help desk.” I found the help desk, but there was no Kenny. I talked to the people there, and they said he had been standing right there just a minute ago. I waited some more, and he still did not show up.
Finally, the lady asked if I would like for them to announce a request that Kenny report to the help desk. I said yes, and I waited for a while longer, but Kenny still did not appear. Finally, I had to go to the rest room… and guess what I heard announced while I was in there?
After several repetitions of this annoying exercise, the two of us finally found each other. (My parking fee was quite a bit more than what I had expected.) Our adventure finally began as we headed north across the city of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we followed California Highway 1 along the Pacific coast to the Point Reyes National Seashore. I had reserved a night in a motel in Inverness, California, overlooking the scenic Tomales Bay.
The next morning, I woke up a little earlier than Kenny, and I went out and got a number of photos of the bay and the sun rising over the eastern mountains. When I got back to our room, Kenny was about ready to go. We headed out, going east on small county roads towards Petaluma. Then we took California Highway 37 across the northern end of the bay to Vallejo.
I drove Kenny around Vallejo, showing him all the sights. Then we got on Interstate 80 and headed east. Our next destination was Reno, Nevada, where we stopped for an hour or so, had something to eat, and gambled a little. We then fairly flew across Nevada, which had no speed limit. (It was a very different experience from my previous crossing during a snowstorm.) When we reached the Utah border we had to slow down again, and we stopped in Salt Lake City to take some photos of the Mormon Temple and the statue of the angel Moroni.
Then we got back on the road for the long haul across Wyoming. Finally we reached the farm in Flagler, Colorado, where our parents and younger brothers were waiting for us. It was so good to be home! I had two whole weeks to spend with my family before Marilyn came. It was wonderful to be back on the farm and to live like an ordinary civilian for a little while.
Marilyn flew back to the United States from Paris, France, late on November 24, 1971, on the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving. I met her at the Stapleton Airport in Denver, late on a cold and snowy night. There was about a foot of snow on the ground. We left the airport about midnight and when we were well out of Denver, I pulled over and we talked and talked (and maybe smooched) for a while. I just wanted to have some time with Marilyn by herself. I would have to share her with my brothers and my parents when we got home.
Then, about 2 A.M., we finally headed home. My parents got up to meet Marilyn. We talked for a short while and I took several photos before we headed to bed.
Finally our vacation time passed and it was time to go. Marilyn left for San Diego a few days after Thanksgiving, and about a week later I boarded the plane to fly to San Francisco, and eventually to my ship in the waters off the coast of Vietnam. We were both starting to count the days until we could be together forever.
Marilyn’s version:
During my trip to Europe, I tried to keep in touch with Gary by having my mail sent to the American Express offices along my route. Because my sister and I had bought American Express Traveler’s Cheques to finance our journey, we could use “Poste Restante” at the American Express offices throughout Europe. People could write to us in care of an American Express office in one of the major European cities, and the mail would be held for us for 30 days. (Elizabeth’s friend Darlene, of course, was carrying her father’s American Express Gold Card, and she had far more privileges than we did, like maps and restaurant passes.)
Gary wrote to me often, and when I replied I always told him what my next few major destinations would be, so he could send his next letter there. When the time came to return to the United States, I told him my flight information in a letter. I left Europe a few days before my visa—and my plane ticket—expired. My sister Elizabeth was very put out that I was “wasting” the last few days of our trip, but I explained that I thought it was more important to meet my future in-laws.
When I flew to Colorado, Elizabeth went to England to spend her last few days in Europe with some of our distant cousins, the Ottewells, in the town of St. Alban’s, south of London. (She said that she did not want to stay in Paris if I was not going to be there to translate for her!)
It was about 11:30 p.m. when my plane touched down at the Stapleton Airport. I was pretty jet-lagged after the long trip, but it was so nice to see my guy again! I had never been to Colorado before, and I wanted very much to meet Gary’s family before he and I were married. It was important to me that they should see me and accept me before our wedding.
I believe, from what I heard later, that Gary’s mother was a little taken aback when she discovered that I was two years older than her son. Her son explained that he knew about the age difference and it was fine with him. And I remember that Gary’s father set up some sort of a “puzzle test” for me with matches laid out on the kitchen table. I had to move just one match to solve the problem. I looked at the matches carefully, and thought, “Well, maybe it’s this one.” I picked up the match, and realized I had solved the problem. Gary and his dad both laughed, and I realized I had passed some sort of Pickens family initiation.
I don’t remember much else, except that it was really hard to stay awake for the first few days. I do remember Gary driving me around the farm on an old Model T, and finding out that the “big hill” where Gary’s parents lived was invisible to my San Francisco-trained eyes. I met all of Gary’s brothers — Rod and Bruce were still going to school in Flagler, and Ken came home from Colorado College for Thanksgiving Day. After Thanksgiving, with Gary’s help, I was finally able to discern a very gentle swell of ground on the road where the house stood. (Much later, after I was married, I visited the very horizontal state of Kansas, and I understood why the Pickens family said that they lived on a hill.)
My visit to Colorado was much too short. I flew back to San Diego on Saturday, November 27, 1971. Gary would spend some more leave time with his family, and then he would fly across the Pacific to take up his assignment as a DS3 in the CIC on the U.S.S. Chicago, CG-11. Whenever the Chicago finished her WestPac tour of duty (which would happen some time in April, according to the Navy’s standard duty schedule) and returned to her home port in San Diego, we would be married. The third Saturday in May seemed like a safe choice for a wedding date. Gary would surely be home by then.
Version 3.1
