In the present day and age, for some of us our long-ago years can sometimes seem like another lifetime, peopled by almost forgotten characters. And for me, one of those times was one January 27, many, many moons back--it was the last day of our honeymoon, Willard Boggan and me. And that one day always brings a smile to my face.
***
“Although I’ve put pencil to our expenses several times over the years, it’s always been hard to figure out how much you cost. I hate to say it, but to this very day, I still haven’t reasoned out how much our honeymoon and some other trips and outings that you planned cost us,” my Scotch-Irish husband Willard had said as we sat out on the wooden deck of a townhouse overlooking the inter-coastal Gulf Shores canal. He leaned forward and tilted his head as if waiting for me to come out with a profound remark.
Not sure what he wanted to hear, I only answered with a non-committal, “Huh?”
“Even though our first trip to the Florida Panhandle was on our honeymoon, many years ago, you ought to have an idea what I’m talking about.”
For some reason I hadn’t liked the turn this conversation was taking. “I have no clue what you mean.” With the tone of his voice, and because the ‘no-see-um gnats’ were beginning to bite, I half stood to go inside, but Willard waved me to sit back down.
“It was the last day of our honeymoon, back on January 27, 1958. I remember it as a very special day, because when we left Florida we’d be heading home, back to reality. You, to raising three children, and me to my medical practice.”
Instead of answering, I had watched as a pelican began rocking with the wind currents, then he tucked his oatmeal-colored wings and sailed onto a nearby boat post.
“Well, the two of us certainly did that mine, yours, and ours bit before it was fashionable,” I muttered. “But, what do you mean--what I cost?” I squared my shoulders and didn’t try to hide the annoyed sound in my voice. “And does this conversation have anything to do with what we’re spending now?”
“You sound defensive.” He squinted his eyes.
“Me?” I slapped my hand to my chest. “Defensive?”
Some 46 years after our honeymoon, hurricane Ivan had ravaged our beloved vacation home, our Florida condo and because my husband I had been in the throes of rebuilding, our finances were strained. Promised insurance money had not come through; we were having to rent a nearby place to stay, in Gulf Shores Alabama, and our building expenses were way above what we thought they would be. So, with all of that, the two of us were very much in tune with the subject of our expenditures. Back then we didn’t talk about what was going on in the world, or the local happenings and even though it had been all over the news, Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, Brittany Spear’s bald pate, or Al Sharpton’s philosophical musings were not in our mindset either.
“I should have had an inkling about expenses, even way back then, in the late fifties,” Willard said. “And if you think about it, you’ll remember what I’m referring to when I say, ‘how much you cost’.”
Money had been the main topic of our conversation for quite a while and right at that moment I felt a need to have an answer ready for my husband.
“I do recollect us spending the last day of our honeymoon just a short ways from here,” I said, stalling for time and still trying to figure out exactly what he meant by, ‘how much you cost us’.
“The best I can recall, many of the homes at Gulf Shores in the late 50s were Jim Walter types, up on stilts.” I swatted at one of the pesky, almost invisible gnats. “I don’t remember much, but there’s still a vague recollection of us riding by a run-down motel that looked like one of those drive-in, pay-by-the-hour places.”
He sighed deeply “You may have forgotten, but that’s where we ended up staying. If I recall correctly, it cost us $9. And back then, even though I had your high price tag captured in living color, for the life of me I still can’t figure out the net.”
What he had referred to were pictures from a now obsolete eight-millimeter movie camera. A deep grin on his face, the no see-ums could have gotten lost in Willard’s dimples.
***
Ah hah. January 27, 2026. And even now, 68 years later, all alone except me and my doggie Lettie Lou, some of those old memories still make me cringe. But only a few seconds later, a smile crept across my face, an embarrassed giggle popped out, then my laughter filled the room.
Now I remembered. My groom and I had rented one of those small, space-heater, linoleum-floored motel rooms for the last night of our honeymoon. Shortly before sunset, husband Willard had turned the camera on and put it on the hood to his old Buick station wagon. The movie pictures show me running toward him, my arms reaching out.
I must have made a misstep. The next frames are shots of my behind with a price tag hanging from the waistband of my new clam diggers britches: as the film, rolled another frame came into view. SALE PRICE $7.95.
For a few seconds I had concentrated on scratching a gnat bite, while I thought about what to say, and then looked up.
“Well, after all these years,” I said. “Have you figured out whether that price is by the day or the week?”
My husband had been ahead of me.
“What about by the hour?”
