We had our first date in Sept 1965 and in January, 1966, I proposed. I used a ring that my mother had given me. The diamond had been in our family for a couple generations at least and since the setting didn’t look right anymore, I had the diamond removed and put into a new setting. I wasn’t sure Karen would accept a “used” diamond, but when she heard the story, she was happy with it.
At some point, I had quit the railroad and was just going to school. We wanted to get married in the temple and so if you were a convert to the church, you had to wait one year before you could be ordained an Elder so that you could go to the temple. I was baptized in August, so we had to wait until after August of 1966 to get married. I don’t know how the date was picked, but we decided on Sept 22.
Also, at some point after we got engaged, I began to have second thoughts and started worrying if this was what I really wanted. I had thought about going on a mission, but soon gave up that idea. I really wasn’t sure she would wait for me. At one point, I became so agatated thinking about it and the big changes that were about to come into my life, that I felt I had to get away and clear my head. Like a dope, I didn’t tell her (or anyone else for that matter) and one day, I just up and left town and went back to Biloxi where I had spent four years. I needed a familiar setting away from family and friends and church and time to think about what I should do and, more importantly, if I was doing the right thing. I was tremendously insecure as a person and self-image has always been a problem with me. I had to convince myself that I was worthy of her and spending the rest of my life with her.
Not too many people know this story and maybe I shouldn’t be telling it now, but I want this to be as complete as possible. If I have some facts wrong, I hope Karen will correct me so I can have as correct a record as possible. I knew that companies came to Biloxi to interview and hire people because of the training base. It was a great resource of people constantly getting out of the service and looking for work. The first thing I did when I got to Biloxi was to check into a motel and go buy a newspaper. I looked at the classified ads and remember that 2 stood out. IBM was in town and RCA was there. IBM was interviewing in another (fancier) hotel just down the beach from where I was, so I went there first.
They took my application, saw that I had taught for 4 years and figured I was a good prospect. So they scheduled me the next day for an aptitude test. This is the kind of test where they find out how logically you can think as well as how much you know. Since I had been out of the service only about a year, I remembered just about everything I had learned. I was especially good at problems of logic. For instance, if you have A and B, then what is C going to look like. I was good at solving puzzles and problems and to make a long story short, they offered me a job with the New Orleans branch office as a Customer Engineer. I accepted and never did get over to talk to RCA.
Dad