240728 Long ago and 309 miles away

This story comes from early January of 1964.

Joyce and I were getting married on Saturday, January 11, 1964.

Joyce and her parents, me and my parents were driving from Memphis Tn. back to Millington, Tn. Joyce’s parents had bought her a dress for our wedding, while I would wear my navy dress blue uniform. A popular song came on the radio. It was titled “Going to the chapel of love.” I’ll post a link to it at the end of the story. My dad hated the song, while we liked it.

We got back to Millington, and I took Joyce to the navy exchange at the naval training center where I was going to school for basic aviation electronics. We went into the exchange to look at rings. We picked one for each of us. They were simple gold 14 carat rings. Being at the exchange on a naval base, there was no giganti markup like a traditional jewelry store and no excise tax on the rings. Joyces ring cost just $7 while mine cost $9. They were nice rings despite the low prices.

We had those rings from 1964 until 1989 when we were away from the farm and burglars broke into our farm house and stole all of Joyce’s ring and jewelry and my ring.

Back to the story, we were scheduled to get married on Sunday the eleventh of January after the early morning eight o’clock mass at Saint Williams Catholic church in Millington. Joyce and our families were there for mass, while I was not. I had been up until the wee hours of the morning getting my uniform pressed, shining my shoes and taking care of every minor detail. I put my name and bunk number on the firewatch list for wakeup times. The firewatch never woke me up. There were four of my navy friends there for the wedding. When I didn’t arrive, they came to search for me. They woke me up and I got dressed and we headed for church. Mass was long over, the priest was tired of waiting. Her and my parents asked her if she was ready to leave church and call things off. Lucky for me Joyce, while embarrassed, wanted to stay. I finally arrived, explained what happened and while no one was impressed, the wedding went on and we were officially married.

We all went to a late breakfast in Memphis, afterward we headed back to Millington, my buddies went back to base, my dad registered us for a one night room at the Sleepy Inn Motel in Millington. The families left and Joyce and I were alone. She had to leave and go back to college at Southeast Missouri state campus in Cape Girardeau, Mo. to finish out her semester before joining me back in Millington. We lived in an efficiency apartment just a walking distance from the training center for a few months until I was transferred to Southeast Georgia to be an airborne radar operator in the EC 121 K aircraft. Joyce went back home and I was being trained for my future operations.

Here is the first place where we lived after getting married.

We were in an efficiency apartment on the left side of this picture, a walking distance to the training center in Millington.

Here is the link to “The Chapel of Love” song. Going To The Chapel Of Love- by The Shirells