Chapter Twenty Five
Just into the new year of 1976 I went to the doctor because I couldn't do anything without getting exhausted by the effort. Just walking around the room made me weak!
The doctor said I looked a little anemic and ordered tests that included Barium and discovered my bleeding duodenal ulcer.
He said ulcer therapy had changed over the years and that I could eat anything I liked as long as it didn’t bother me. If it did...don’t do that!
I was given some intestinal relaxants and set free.
Over several months the ulcer cleared up. I think the ultimate break up of Jeanette and I had a little to do with it’s alleviation, too.
We’d had tiffs about every three months from day one. She was an intelligent, out spoken woman who could be very close-minded when it came to things she disagreed with.
She was self-admittedly selfish.
Her mother had severe mental problems and she had a nagging fear they’d visit themselves on her sooner or later.
She had been raised by devout Baptist parents but had become quite the atheist by the time we'd met and married, though her religious views were never an issue.
I learned early on that if it didn't mean that much to me one way or another it was easiest to defer to her decisions and let things ride. We never fought.
Our relationship was a based on a quasi-open marriage. Open marriages were popular in the 70's for couples who wanted to "explore their sexuality" with other people; and, in some cases, other couples. Ours made the quasi category because the philosophy of open marriage expected the partners to come home from their trysts and tell all, supposedly strengthening the bond between them.
Jeanette didn't want to be told.
She told me outright, at the beginning of our marriage, that she felt it was inevitable we might meet someone from time to time that we might want to go to bed with. There was no reason to talk about it: "Just save enough for me".
On that we both agreed.
The few arguments we did have were never long lasting. They were more like uncomfortable-nesses.
We’d gotten to points where things were not comfortable; they were disagreeable.
Remember, early on, I was leaning towards Cay in the on-going relationship department. It was an unresolved situation when Jeanette informed me of her pregnancy. Although I cared for Jeanette and eventually came to love her somewhat, I don't think I was ever deeply in love with her.
We split up several times for short periods during our marriage: the first being in 1971 in Dallas, the Christmas after Stephanie Allison was born. As usual, Jeanette went back to Amarillo.
A couple of nights after she left I was hanging out in one of our regular pubs and was hit upon by an inebriated, good looking, large breasted, fleshy assed, long legged, red haired woman in such a way as to know this was going to be a sure thing. We went back to my place and indulged our desires.
The next day Jeanette called and wanted to patch things up. She returned Christmas Eve and we celebrated in the sack. Christmas morning I awoke with a leaking penis.
Gonorrhea has a three day incubation period and manifests itself by a greenish yellow pus-y discharge and sometimes a painful and/or burning sensation during urination.
One of the things I learned at Allen Military Academy was that in the days prior to antibiotics a heated wire loop was inserted into the urethra and the diseased tissue was repeatedly and vigorously scraped out.
I understood it to be worse than the disease.
So here's the chronology: I had contracted the disease on Thursday night. We got back together and made love on Saturday. Christmas Day was Sunday, when I noticed the discharge.
Thankfully there was never any painful urination after my first bout with the infection 3 years previous. This was my third affliction.
I made an appointment with Dr. Cole on Monday and in the afternoon handed Jeanette her own prescription for tetracycline.
Yes, I had given her the clap for Christmas!
She took it in her stride. We had been broken up. It was 100% curable. No big deal.
Lesson: Marriage is a give and take affair.
We split up again two more times while living in California. Each time it was she who called or wrote and we always seemed to patch things up.
Jeanette's a good talker. She reasons well. She's persuasive and genuine in her approach to things.
It was hard to argue with her because she was closed to any opinion not her own.
Most marrieds will agree that, sometimes, staying together is easier than breaking up. That's why we stayed together as long as we did.
It was convenient.
But while we were in Amarillo things were not moving along all too comfortably at all. We were always having problems. Mind you, our problems were not unlike the problems all people have in relationships. We didn't hate or dislike one another; we were just not getting along very well. We had a beautiful daughter, Stephanie, whom we both loved dearly and we wondered if having another child would draw us closer together.
We didn't know.
Then precious Lisa Clare was born.
My two daughters are the dearest people in the world to me.
I haven't been there in their lives too much, but we communicated with each other throughout the years and were able to spend time together.
These moments are the dearest to me of all my memories.
I had wanted to be in the delivery room when Stephanie was born but Baylor Hospital in Dallas didn't allow it at the time.
Attitudes changed quickly in the 70's.
Four years after Stephanie was born they were encouraging fathers be in the delivery rooms if they wanted.
So, now in Amarillo, I was there when Lisa made her entrance.
I held her in my arms when she was just 45 minutes old. It was the most wonderful indelible moment for me: holding my little daughter in my arms looking at her with nothing but love and dreams of magical times for her throughout her life. Her tiny fingers wrapped around mine and I knew there would be few, if any, moments that would equal the glorious feelings and emotions I was experiencing just then.
Lisa is the true light of my life. I am more proud of her than anything I can imagine. She is everything to me.
But the fading marriage was destined to end.
Neither Stephanie nor Lisa had anything to do with our parting. Jeanette and I were growing apart in our beliefs and visions and no one on the planet can control it when that happens.
Off and on over a period of about a year and a half I had been having what began as a sexual relationship with a woman I had met while on the air at KQIZ radio.
Barbara had called one day and said "Play 'Misty' for me".
It's not something you say to a Disc Jockey.
Rent the movie of that name staring Clint Eastwood as a disc jockey, and Jessica Walters as his caller, and you'll see what I mean.
I teased her about what was on her mind and we started talking. She wanted to hear the new version, just released, by Ray Stevens.
We didn't have the record on our playlist and for some reason the program director wouldn't buy it. Over a few days of chatting she eventually asked if we'd play it if she bought it.
This time, for some reason, the PD agreed.
We met for the fist time when she brought it in...and we were on. She was in an abusive marriage and we became phone friends.
Our phone chats became longer and then we started seeing one another for "afternoon delights" after the song of the same name, popular at the time.
During this time I'm sure Jeanette was seeing other people but I was never consciously aware of it and never told her about my visits with Barbara.
We saw each other maybe once a week for a few months and then things cooled for a few months.
One afternoon after I had left the station I called her up and, on a lark, said "Wanna Fuck?"
She said "Where and when?”
I gave her the address and directions to my office and asked how long it would take to get there.
Within 30 minutes we'd rekindled our relationship.
It started out as basically sexual.
We'd talk on the phone about our lives but never dated. We just got together and made the most amazing love.
Sex with Barbara was unlike any other woman. It was the same sex everyone has...but everything just went together so much better when it was she and I.
We became close and caring friends. I looked forward to our talks. And to our private passionate moments, as well.
I had bankrolled Jeanette with some of my inheritance in a shop she called "Starshine" where she made and sold clothes and jewelry and accessories. She started taking jewelry-making classes at Amarillo College to improve her skills.
Barbara almost gave me a heart attack when she showed up at the opening of the store, but I relaxed immediately when I saw the devilish little twinkle in her eyes as she conveyed to me she knew exactly what she was doing.
She even bought something.
Barbara and I have remained friends ever since. She is extremely dear to me and always has been.
Jeanette didn't get rich from the store but it paid her bills for a couple of years after our separation.
I had a lion's head ring I was very fond of. Suddenly, it disappeared and was never seen again. I figured out many months after we split up that she'd melted it down and made something else out of it. What, I never knew.
Too, she was using the classes as a way of getting out of the house and seeing her lover. The problem was her lover was a friend of the family.
She was in love with him. He was in love with her.
She was dating him. They'd go out and have dinner and go to movies together. In public.
It didn't bother me her having sex with someone -what she did with her body was her business.
Love wasn’t supposed to be a part of the equation. Friendship was one thing. I didn't mind their being intimatly close friends, as even Barbara and I were.
But in public...the dating...that was impossible for me to accept and we broke it off... for good.
The good was: on the day we split I decided to quit smoking and to go on a diet. I weighed about 260 pounds and was firing up at least 5 packs of Camel filters a day.
Over the ensuing 5 months I successfully lost over 45 pounds!
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