On Friday, January 26, 1968, I married a great guy, a funny, loving, warm man who deserved a happier life than the one I gave him. I left him on July 3, 1974, because I was a lesbian, a little bit of truth I didn’t know on that day in 1968. I would have spared him my leaving if there was any way I could have lived as a straight woman. I could not.
I met him when I was a journalism summer intern at the Titusville Star-Advocate, now defunct. I had just completed my sophomore year in college, and he’d just wrapped up his junior year at Johns Hopkins University. I had dated rarely in high school and very little in college, but Bill was one of the funniest guys I’d ever met. He was also a genuinely nice guy who came from a well-to-do family, but his parents were smart enough not to hand him anything on any kind of plate. He worked for everything he got, and I admired that about him.
He had begun working at the Star-Advocate as a paper boy when he was in grammar school and had worked his way up while in school. On breaks from college, Bill worked at the newspaper, and that is where our paths crossed. He has always had the kind of dry wit I enjoy. We still communicate regularly, and it’s still fun to see his sense of humor unfold. Always unexpected, always delightful.
When we started dating, my city editor was not happy. He didn’t think I would fit in with Bill’s family and made several pointed comments to that effect. Of course, I didn’t listen. We were just dating. I had no idea that it would lead to anything. Good grief. I was 19!
We began dating at Titusville’s July 4th celebration at the little airport when I was covering it for the paper and ran into him just poking around the games and rides. We walked around and talked about things, and I began to realize how funny he was. And there was no doubt that he was intelligent. He cared about civil rights the way I did, which was important to me. I had a rule that I would not date anyone who used the “n” word – I thought that was the reason I hadn’t dated much. And most of the guys I went to college with were more than a little boring.
I loved dating that first summer. We went to the movies all the time, and I love movies. Very often we went to the Titusville drive-in, cleverly sited next to a large swamp. That insured that the mosquitoes would swarm…just as the movie started. So we always had to have those little spiral anti-mosquito coils going. I was so into the movies that there wasn’t a lot of necking going on. Besides the smoke from the coil often made me sneeze, but we couldn’t survive without it. My favorite trip to the drive-in was the week Bill’s 1966 stripped down Dodge Dart (stick shift) was in the garage. Bill showed up in his father’s Jaguar sedan – the one with the inlaid mahogany dashboard and the red leather upholstery. Okay, I love cars as much as movies. I loved that car.
Did I date girls in college? Nope. Did not even know that was an option. I’d always had my girl crushes, but I had never heard of lesbians. Try to remember that I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, and when I say “grew up in” I mean IN. While my dad was a Southern Baptist preacher, he wasn’t a pastor, but the rules still applied. God was always watching. Every time we got out of the car, my mother said, “Remember who you are and whose you are.” Every. Time. School, church, movies, friends’ houses. Every time. I used to look at my brother as we walked away and we asked each other, “What does that even mean?” We knew, but every time?
I liked being with Bill, but marriage? I wasn’t ready to be that serious. My brother was born serious about Chip, his wife whom he began dating when he was 15. I’d never had a really serious relationship. The Easter after we began dating the previous July, Bill was coming to spend the holidays with us. My parents were not happy about my dating him. When we’d driven from Birmingham to Titusville, FL, over the Christmas holidays – and my parents thought we were going to stop in Georgia and get married. Nothing could have been further from my mind!
But by Easter, they were ready for this to be over. And they talked and talked and talked to me. Was I sure this was God’s choice for me? Did I see myself growing old with Bill? On and on and on it went. I’ll admit it. They wore me down, but they couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had my own doubts. Then when Bill came, and I told him it was off, he talked and talked and talked to me. On and on it went. I’ll admit it. He wore me down, but he couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had my own doubts. Yeah, see the symmetry? I just got lost in it all. So much talking, and no one asked me what I wanted to do. They had their own agendas, and my job was to make everyone happy. I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew something wasn’t right. I had no idea what was off however.
We continued dating, and in June I flew up to Baltimore to see Bill graduate from Hopkins. That summer, I interned at the Star-Advocate again, but Bill worked in the History Department at Cape Canaveral. He had his B.A. in American History and was headed to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for graduate school.
Soon, every time we went to a mall, Bill tried to get me to try on engagement rings. I hemmed and hawed. I really didn’t want to. At the time, I was living with my sister and her first husband, not a happy marriage. There was so much yelling, so much anger, so many slamming doors. Bill attributed my reluctance to get engaged to my fear of being in a marriage like theirs. Our marriage would be different, he said. We would have fun. Up until that point, I hadn’t thought of marriage as something that was supposed to be fun. Romantic. Soul-binding. Happy. Fulfilling. Fun? Hmm.
Eventually, I asked him why we couldn’t go on like we were, dating and being close. Why did it have to evolve into marriage? He told me that if I didn’t go into a store with him to pick out a ring, he would stop seeing me altogether, because he wanted us to be moving toward something. I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t ready to make the break, but wasn’t ready to commit either. So we became engaged.
Here’s the story of our engagement: Bill called his parents, who had moved to New Mexico when his dad was transferred from Cape Canaveral to White Sands Missile Center. His mother suggested he drive me to Lake Osceola in Winter Park, FL, and ask me next to the lovely lake with the lighted water fountain in the background. This is how I know I wasn’t ready. When he asked for my finger, I gave him the finger. Yes, that finger. I thought it was funny. He didn’t. So we were engaged.
My sister was going to make my wedding dress. But every time I was on my way out the door to do something, she wanted me for a fitting. I really wasn’t into the whole wedding thing. The truth was I had never thought about getting married. I wanted a career. I didn’t
care about what music was played, what the cake looked like, what kind of flowers were used. I wanted the wedding to occur without involving a lot of angst. My mother complained one time too often about how difficult it all was, so stressful for her. So, I said I would take over. My friend Lynn had had a lovely wedding, so I just asked for her baker and florist. I told the florist I wanted a bunch of green at the front, and told the baker I wanted the same cake Lynn had. The only thing I cared about was having the organist (a friend of our family and a teacher at Samford University where Mother & Dad worked) play “The Rosary” when my mother was seated. It was one of her favorite songs – think there was a book or movie she liked.
I had taken extra courses every semester so I could finish college in Jan., instead of waiting for June. That last semester I studied like crazy, but had a recurring dream where the Registrar’s Office called me in March saying I had miscounted my credits and was three shy of graduate requirements.
I had my last final exam on Tuesday and got married Friday night. Why Friday night? Well, it was when my brother got married, and I had so much fun at his wedding. I didn’t enjoy my wedding at all. Years later I would do stand-up comedy and learn how to be entertaining in front of a crowd. Maybe if I could have told jokes…
As soon as we got the wedding photos back, I realized – my eyes were totally glazed over and I had the exact same smile in every picture. I wasn’t there. I recall looking out and seeing a friend of mine watching me during the photo session after the wedding. She looked puzzled, and later asked me what I was thinking of. She said I looked like I was in a total panic. I told her I was, but I didn’t know why.
Bill and I did have fun being married. Three weeks after we were married, he took me to a history department party, chock full of some of the most arrogant and self-important people I’d ever met. They thought themselves “real” intellectuals. However, in the back room, I found a group of great people crammed around a tiny black and white TV watching a UNC basketball game. Having cut my teeth on Alabama, Auburn, and Samford football, with a minor interest in Samford basketball, I felt like Han Solo in “The Force Awakens” – “Chewie, we’re home.” If there were sports to watch, I’d be okay.
I regularly harassed Bill into going to stand in line to get tickets to the UNC basketball games in grand ole Carmichael Auditorium. Once I saw then star Charlie Scott on the side of the road and almost drove the car off the road.
On Oct. 31, 1968, I got it. I finally understood what had been bothering me. I went to the movies with a student who worked part-time in the Chemistry Dept. where I was in the secretarial pool. We drove to Durham, to the little artsy movie theater and saw “The Swimmer” with Burt Lancaster. Afterwards, she drove me home, and we sat outside talking for two hours. I never wanted the evening to end. It was just … right. It clicked. It felt natural. Before that night, I didn’t “know.” Afterwards, I knew everything without anything at all happening. I just knew.
Lucy and I never went out again. She was married. I was married. Several years after I left Bill, he moved back to Chapel Hill to work in the University Library. He wrote me that he had run into her – and she was a lesbian.
(c) Judith Schenck
April 11, 2016
Filed under: Coming out, Marriage, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »