Banner photo: Beth meets the folks. The lower photo is Beth's senior high school picture.

I was home, and had a diploma in my hand, so what next? I have a BS in Bible and a minor in pastoral ministry, and yes they give out those degrees; I'm an expert in Bible/religion/preaching, but there is a problem with becoming an ordain minister in my denomination, The Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, I needed a Master's of Divinity, and yes you can study to become Divine, whatever that means. The thesaurus will give you a bunch of terms for divinity, Godlike, spiritual, Holy, separate from the others, and etc. I just wanted to preach and minister, and not spend another three to four years in a graduate school. That meant I would just be a licensed minister in rural churches doing part-time work, but in ministry there really isn't a part time job, it is all or nothing, and I would preach in small rural churches for the next eighteen years of my life while having a full time job. I had no days off, except between churches, I became known by the Area Minister (a bishop for those in more structured faiths), as the preacher to send in for trouble churches in the interim between full time ministers, but for the years of my marriage to Beth we would work as a team, a duo ministry in two churches and two faiths, one Methodist and the other Christian.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm home and I take a job in a nearby church as their minister. Here I would sort of meet my next wife. I said sort of, in that I met her mother. In the announcement part of the service, I announced I would miss a Sunday because I've been asked to chaperon for the Areas' week long summer camp, at the "Rickman Center," near Jefferson City. After the sermon as I shook the hands of the worshipers as they left the building, this is when I meet Mary Frye, as I shook her hand she talks about her daughter, I was being set up. I said to Mary politely, "I would love to meet your daughter," not thinking I would.

She replied, "You will, she is also a counselor at a church camp."

"Where is she now?" I inquire, hoping to see my blind date before camp.

She said, "She is in St. Louis," enrolled in Eden Theological Seminary. I was being set up. I didn't have to date her; I would only check her out, but we did travel together to the camp. She was goodlooking, and an easy person to know, I thought, maybe, and once we were at camp we went our separate ways. The camp campus is a series of outdoor cabins in a wooded area and it is the same one I helped to build. Since I took shop in high school to avoid math, I became friends with the shop teacher, Mr. M., and he was always volunteering me for things in the summer months, like moving the school, helping elderly people move, or in this case building cabins for the new Rickman Center. I wondered if the cabin I was staying in was the one I helped build, hard to tell with all the cabins scattered about. There is a conference center, a dining hall, a meeting room, and a swimming pool, so it wasn't roughing it, by any means, but that came in the next chaperoned event that I was asked to join, a six day float trip down the Current River. It seems once you become known as a camp counselor, you're invited to many of them, and you don't refuse the Area Minister.

I saw Beth on and off as our counselling duties took us in different directions, but one day the whole camp is in a meeting, and we are invited to go swimming in the pool. It is a long walk from the community building, so Beth and I trailed back from the rest, as I accompanied her to the pool when she fell, an old cheerleading injury from high school. Her knee is bleeding so I take her back to the first aid room to dress her wound, something I'd picked up from being a manager on the basketball team, and that did it, because the chemicals were exchanged and we bonded. We didn't go to swim, we talked and talked.

Each morning people would begin to gather at the top of the hill, near the dining hall for breakfast. I was sitting on a picnic table when another counselor, I'll call Miss Dee, came up to me and sat on my lap and started French kissing me, with a lot of tongue. I had no idea what this was about. I didn't even know her, but she was stunningly beautiful. This went on for what seemed like a good five minutes, and I was not one to say no to a beautiful woman kissing me in public. I hear noise around me. Thirty or forty people encompassed the table and were watching us. I heard Beth say, "I can't compete with her," as she talks to the woman next to her. I picked up Miss Dee, she's as light as a feather, and said to her quietly. You're ruining my chance. Miss Dee was young, nineteen young. Beth was marriage material, and I was not going to ruin that opportunity. I sat her aside and went to Beth, and said, "I have no idea what that was about." I think she and Beth had a talk, not sure about that, but come time to go home Miss Dee is riding home with us, she needed a ride. It seemed the ride she had taken to the center was with a man with roaming hands. Perhaps, the whole thing was a show to put on, to get a ride home with me, not knowing I'd caught a ride with Beth. Beth asked me if it was okay and explained the uncomfortableness of her situation with Mr. Handsy. Beth and I knew Mr. Handsy and knew he was touchy, but he was touchy with everyone. It was his mannerism, and no sexual overtones, but it made this young lady uncomfortable so we gave her a ride home. Perhaps, he was out of line, who knows, we weren't in the car with them, but didn't need to hear any more, we gave her a ride. Miss Dee became a minister, and head of her area's summer camps, and she would invite me to be a camp counselor from time-to-time, and I would accept if I could.

Photo: Beth and I are kissing. She's showing off her new rock. Every photo taken of me by Dad is posed. This is not spontaneous. Cameras seldom capture the whiteness of my hair, but it is very blond, and not brown. My beard, however, was dark.

I would ask for Beth's hand in marriage, and the wedding would be the following year. First I would bring her home to meet the parents, I would put a ring on her finger, and by May of 1979 we were married. I would add my old job of working in the factory to my preaching schedule, so I was busy seven days a week. The day we picked out patterns for the wedding in her city's downtown, it was a joyous occasion for us. We walked out on to the streets to do more shopping when a shop worker from some store came out and asked me, "Are you Olan Smith?"

I said, "Yes." Your boss wants you to come to work. Holy shit. I was with my bride registering at a bridal shop, and he ran me down in a town of 13,000 people. How many stores did he have to call to catch up with me as I shopped? Come on, I thought. Can't I have a break from work to prepare for my upcoming wedding?

Beth said, "Go to work. I'll be fine." I go to work; they need an extra material handler for the second shift, but what a bastard they were to do this to me. I decide to find a better company to work for. I was already working a circuit of two churches, thirty miles apart, on alternate Sundays. I asked one of my parishioners if he could get me lined up for a job at his work place. He did and I was employed in another town. Beth and I get married at one of her former churches and it is off to wedded, well, not bliss.

Wedding photo of Beth and me. Beth had a broken ankle so she has a cast on her left foot. From left to right: Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Frye Smith, (me) Olan L. Smith, Curtis Allen Smith, Walter (Walt) William Smith, Jr., Mom, Louise Lowry Smith, nee Wescott, and Dad, and Walter William Smith, Sr. Middle Grove Christian Church, May 20th 1979.