My graduation photo with my substitute father, a Missouri transplant to Oregon, Fred Manley, May 1978. Banner photo is of a painting painted in the 1980's, the scene is out of my imagination and not a particular location.

I met my future fiancée, Darlene, at the beginning of 1975 in my third year of undergraduate school. I don't remember where we went, just that I asked her on a date, most likely a school function of some sort. She was the sister of two of my friends, a trio of siblings attending the same college, and each a year or so apart in age. She was a Seattle suburb child, and we clicked, and as I look back on it, we were better suited as friends, but you can't mix two kids together at that age and not expect something to happen. In fact, a lot of things sparked. My first and second wives got together to talk; never a good thing, and they told each other that I never really loved anyone but Darlene. To be honest, perhaps that is true, but it never would have worked between us longer than it did, if we were just too young. Darlene was only nineteen when we met, and I was about three years her senior. Having learned my dating lessons, in that Christian College setting, this relationship grew slowly into sexual coupling, a month or two later, on the banks of the Mackenzie River.

Photo: Mackenzie River, Oregon.

Let me preface this scene by telling you I made mistakes while in a relationship with women. I bend to them. I became what they wanted of me, which was a big mistake. I should be myself, but I wanted the relationship so badly, and I became pliable. We were, what we called then, necking in the reeds along the banks. When she moved it to the next phase, she was sizing me up as a partner. Darlene said, "I'm not sure you are able to give me what I want." I asked what that was, she replied, "I have certain desires that are more of a grey area, and I'm not sure you can fulfill them for me." I'd found a quiet-looking weird one. What the fuck, I had heard of grey areas of sex, but thought it was more role-play. However, this was for real. She was gorgeous; 5'9" tall, with long brunette hair, and if I was going to please her, I needed to become that man who practiced the gray arts. I bent to her will, and I was morphing; I became what she wanted in a man; otherwise, we were a normal couple, she on the fringe and me tagging along for the fun of it. In the fall of 1976, we were engaged to be married and by the second trimester of 1977, we broke up. Somewhere in there she met another man, and gave me back the engagement ring I had given her, but we did a lot of things while we were together. I taught her to drive and other things, and I'm not going to mention some of the things she taught me, but they were mindexpanding for this in-lander, and totally without drugs. I stayed in Eugene for the summer of '77, and climbed two volcanoes, got a job or two, one was as a Fuller Brush salesman, and one as a janitorial job from which I was fired, that hurt. I'd never been fired before; also I did a student preaching stint with an area church. I'd been dumped. I was to graduate with a bachelor's of art degree in 1977, but I dropped out for the last trimester and didn't return until the next year, for the third trimester of 1978. I couldn't work out a schedule for taking the third trimester for the second year of Greek, and I had to settle for a BS instead of a BA degree, but that would do for me.

I went home, got a job at a local factory, and I worked to get my mind off of being dumped. I had a lover I picked up from the plant, and that was that, I was over Darlene. When I went back to college in the fall, I moved back into the dorm, same hall, same room, but a different roommate. I was ready to finish this job and get my degree in ministry. I was sitting in the library studying and a woman approached me and introduced herself as the sister of an old girlfriend from my freshman year. So, this is how it's going to be, I thought, reruns. I guess I should've been flattered, but the sister recommended me to her. We hit it off and we went out for pizza. I ask her out for a date, and she replied, sure, but you have to meet my parents. Why meet her parents so soon? She was a senior in high school, and eighteen. I met her parents, and they approved of me, so we dated the rest of the school year. We even went on a double date with her sister and her new man. I had nothing in common with this teenager. We behaved ourselves in the backseat, as her sister made out with her man. What had I gotten myself into, I was a twenty-five year old man dating an eighteen year old, and her idea of fun was dragging the loop, sticking her head out of my car window, and yelling at her friends. At the end of the year I went home, and never thought twice about her. That summer I got a letter from her stating how much she loved me, and asking me when I would return to Eugene. I just tossed the letter. The next year one of my college friends wrote me and said that this freshman woman was asking him about me. I wrote back and said, "Tell her I'm engaged," which I was, to the woman who would become the mother of my children.