My Ex-Wife Visits

Tuesday, August 12, 2014:

Life was good! After a weekend of rainy, misty weather, the sun was shining, and it was warm but not as muggy as eastern Kentucky can get, as my wife and I were sitting on our west-facing screened-in porch, drinking ice-cold lemonade and admiring the lowering sun in the distance. The sun would set in the "notch" between the two mountains, and there were just enough clouds to turn pink and gold to stand out against an increasingly cerulean sky. The corn was tall in the fields, towering nearly ten feet tall, as God had been good to farmers this year, sending us rain when we needed it, yet sparing the flash floods that can hit this area.

Our house was elevated just enough that my fear of the flash floods was unfounded; while the water could rush through the hollows and send the small creeks and rivers raging out of their banks, none had ever reached the farmhouse in the 140 years that it had stood here.

I'm 66 years old, retirement age but not retired, as a farmer doesn't get to be. I had retired as a homebuilder, turning the business over to our eldest son, having long since paid in enough to Social Security to assure my pension, along with my substantial 401(k). I had begun offering 401(k) plans to my employees within a year of starting the company (1983, just as the economy was beginning to recover), and started saving myself. I only wish that the Roth plans had started earlier than they had!

My wife? Donna is 58, and a registered nurse. Salaries are low in eastern Kentucky, with few exceptions, and nurses were one of the exceptions; she pulled down $33.42 an hour. While she really didn't have to work, she wanted to, saying that it kept her from being bored and that the money was always nice to have. We weren't rich by any means, but we were far better off than most people in Powell County. Heck, nearby Lee County was characterized by CNN as the 'poorest white county in America.'

The Red River ran through Powell County, including the spectacular Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge State Park. Our farm wasn't in the Gorge, but we had one of the medium sized creeks which ran into the Red River flowing through our land. Even in the driest years, we always had water. We had 64 acres of some of the best farmland in the county, the best primarily because it wasn't too out-of-level. My grandfather had the well installed, to get fresh water flowing into the house, and I'd put in another, at the far end of the property, at the construction company shop at the far end of the property.

It had been important to my mother that, when my dad and she allowed me to build the construction company shop on the property, that she not be able to see it from the farmhouse. My dad set aside three acres for me, down by the second road entrance for the shop, and not only did I kept the shop area and laydown yard to two acres, but I planted a whole row of hedges and trees, to shield the shop area from the rest of the farm. My son, Kenny Joe, who was now President of Rodgers Construction, lived in a house near the shop, with his wife Kathleen and their two kids, David and Scott. The construction company office was in that house, and Kathleen was the bookkeeper, comptroller, really everything the company required as far as paperwork was required. At any rate, the shop couldn't be either seen or heard from the farmhouse, and to Donna, that was important.

We even had a separate entrance, so we could get to the farmhouse without passing the construction yard, and it was coming up that road, with a slight cloud of dust despite last weekend's rain - it was, after all, a gravel driveway - that my life changed that evening.

We didn't recognize that car. It was older, maybe ten or so years, a Nissan, and it had the dirt and dust of a long trip on it; the windshield wipers had left a clean space on glass that was fairly dirty outside of the wiper area. At least all of the lights were working, something that not everyone in Powell County had. We had a large parking area over by the barn, and the car pulled into that as though the driver was familiar with the property. In doing so, I could see that the car didn't have Kentucky plates, though I wasn't sure by which state they were issued.

The driver sat in the car for about thirty seconds, before opening the door, talking to the passenger. This seemed strange to me. Donna asked me, "Now, who do you suppose that is?"

"I have no idea," I responded, thinking about the fact that both my 30.06 and 12-gauge were sitting, loaded, close to the inside of the French doors which led to the porch. When strangers arrive, it's always a good idea to be prepared. Like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, I like guests, but I prefer to know them and invite them myself.

Finally, the car door opened, and out stepped a woman. She looked at us, and waved, as though she knew us, before walking over to the passenger side and opening that door. A younger man, maybe in his late twenties or very early thirties, got out, standing tall, maybe half a foot above the woman's height. Him I didn't recognize, either. The woman said a few more words to him, urging him along, as they started up the walkway to the house; the younger man seemed hesitant, somehow reluctant to approach.

The walkway is a long one, as the barn is over 150 feet from the house; when my great grandfather had it built, he didn't want the smell of drying tobacco too close to the house. He grew tobacco over most of the farm, and harvested tobacco has to be hung up to dry before sale; tobacco barns have a lot of tall, narrow vent doors to allow the breezes through.

At any rate, the woman, somewhere around my age, and younger man were about half way to the house, when I realized who it was. "Oh, my God, it's Joan."

Saturday, June 26, 1966:

There really was no more miserable place than the military induction center in Louisville.

And its 1,2,3 what are we fightin for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn

Next stop is Vietnam. - Country Joe and the Fish

There we were, a whole fucking line of us, standing there in our underwear, being told to drop our drawers, bend over and spread 'em, as a doctor walked behind us and some fucking sergeant told us that the Army wants only perfect assholes. Yeah, they got that, alright, perfectly embodied in that asshole in green, his shoes spit-shined, his tie perfect, and a medal rack full of ribbons.

A lot of guys were being drafted, but I had enlisted. After all, I knew that I'd get drafted anyway, and my mother, father, uncle, aunt and both grandfathers had served in the Army. My dad was in the Army in Europe, and my mom was an Army nurse. That's where they met. My paternal grandfather had been a doughboy in World War I, and was in the 30th Infantry Regiment that earned the nickname "Rock of the Marne." There was no way that my father was going to let me wait until I was drafted, and the summer after I was graduated from Powell County High School I enlisted.

Friday, August 20, 1971:

It was just a whole jam-up of new students, moving from area to area in the Whitehall Classroom Building, during "New Student" orientation, which meant, in all practical terms, freshman orientation. After 4½ years in the fucking United States Army, including two tours in Vietnam, including the fucking Tet Offensive, I was back in the states, with two years of Army Reserve duty to complete my six, and using my GI Bill to go to college. I was shoulder-to-shoulder with this cute brunette, standing maybe 5'7, as we were in front of UK's 'Gay Liberation Front' booth. Why the fuck did I care about this shit anyway? But the University insisted that we hit all of the booths.

There was some hippie chick there, wearing a sort of peasant blouse and mid-calf length multi-hued print gauze skirt with legs as hairy as mine peaking out, haranguing on and on about something non-sensical, and I was chuckling while the girl beside me was doing the same. I thought that I'd take a chance.

"You find it funny, too, huh?" I half-whispered to her.

She looked up at me, showing off some really interesting grey eyes, which were unfortunately slightly ruined by some gold wire rimmed glasses, and a nice smile. "Yeah, I guess so," she said to me, with a slightly lower octave voice than is usual among teenaged girls.

"At least you don't have legs like hers," I added, maybe stupidly, as I looked down at her stems in a very nice pair of cut-off blue jean shorts.

She smiled at me, and kind of smirked, "What, you wouldn't want to see me let it grow?" She knew that I was trying to flirt, and must've liked it, because she was just slightly flirting back.

"I'm Carl," I introduced myself. This was it: if she gave me her name, I'd know that she was at least a bit interested.

"Joannie," she replied. "What's with the haircut?"

I could understand her question. While the University of Kentucky students hadn't gone out quite as full-blown hippie as the news pictured kids at Berkeley, my military-short haircut - remember; I still had Reserve duty - certainly stood out. This was make-or-break as far as the flirting was concerned; a lot of college kids didn't like the military at all, but it was better to get it over with now, rather than drag things out.

"Just back from 'Nam, and I've got two years of Reserve duty left."

"Oh, OK." She didn't look either impressed or disgusted, so I figured that I at least had a chance with her.

"Listen, wanna ditch this stupid stuff and get some coffee?"

It took her a second, as she pondered her answer. Yeah, she'd been slightly flirting herself, but flirting is easy; taking it another step, especially with a guy who was obviously older then her, that was more of a concern. "Sure," she finally said, and we eased our way out of the crowds around the various orientation - disorientation? - tables.

The walk to the Student Center coffee shop took us past Buell Armory, the building for both Army and Air Force ROTC. "Is that where you have to do your Reserves?" Joannie asked.

"No, not at all. There's a Reserve Center out Russell Cave Road, where I go. One weekend a month, plus I'll have two weeks of camp next summer, so it's a few bucks, and I'll be out in '73."

"But you could get called up to go back to Vietnam?"

"Technically, yeah, but Nixon is trying to draw down the war now that Cambodia didn't win it, so that means it's not likely. I already did two tours, so they're just not going to call me to active and send me back there." By now we were walking along the bridge between the Armory and the second-floor entrance to the Student Center. I'd already checked it out, and, once inside, turning to the right was the coffee shop, and to the left of that, the cafeteria. I wasn't really sure why they were different, except the coffee shop had more like hamburger fare, while the cafeteria had something vaguely resembling real food. While the line fare was different, they shared the same large dining area.

At any rate, I just grabbed a coffee cup and a burger, and Joannie got the same thing. I put everything on one mustard yellow fiberglass tray and saw Joannie reaching into her over-the-shoulder purse for her wallet. "I've got it," I told her. I wondered if she'd go all women's lib on me, but she didn't, at least not too much.

"You do realize that this isn't some kind of date, don't you?"

Maybe I was being stupid, but I pushed ahead, "It could be."

Joannie looked at me a bit harder, as though she was trying to get a good read on me.

I thought that I looked impressive enough. 4½ years in the infantry meant that I was in better shape than most guys around here. This was the hippie age, remember, when there were all of these pencil-necked geeks running around thinking that they were all so important and profound, while I had spent years running and lifting and just generally doing PT. I was blessed by God in being 6'2, but by the Army in building muscle. I wasn't ripped or anything, but broad shoulders, a big chest, big arms and a narrow waist all made me look as strong as I was. That Joannie was studying my looks didn't hurt my feelings at all.

Of course, I might not have been the handsomest guy to graduate from Powell County High School, but I wasn't the ugliest either, and a healed broken nose only made me look tougher. It was clear that this girl wasn't turned off by my military background, so I knew that I had a chance with her.

And she was really cute! Long brunette hair, that had clearly once been dyed red but she'd been letting that grow out, the grey eyes that I've already mentioned, and a college-girl slender body. She'd obviously spent the summer laying out by the pool somewhere, because she was nicely tanned, and her skin had a soft glow to it. She was wearing a fairly dark colored t-shirt, but I could tell: she wasn't wearing a bra because she didn't need one. Obviously an A-cup cutie, with puffy-looking nips that gently pulled her t-shirt just a tiny bit tight, giving me just a hint of what was hidden beneath.

Naturally, I couldn't help but consider one thing: I wanted an American girl to take my American virginity! Oh, I wasn't technically a virgin, thanks to the Vietnamese girls, but there was always the sense that "You take me back home, Joe?" was the real thing that they wanted. Sorry, but no, just no. The civil rights movement might have been in full swing, but the last thing I needed back home was a Vietnamese girl with me. I might have liked the girls a bit, but I sure didn't love any of them.

"It could be, huh?" she asked me. "If my father was here, should he be asking you what your intentions are?" There was a smile in her eyes at that corny line. I wasn't really sure how to answer that one.

Saturday, March 31, 1973:

It was a reasonably warm day in Louisville, as I entered the Southern Baptist Church on Lynn Acres Drive. Joannie had moved in with me at the end of our first freshman semester, once she could get out of the dorm, and now we were going to stand up in front of God and everybody and tie the knot.

Shacking up wasn't that common an occurrence, even in a college town like Lexington, not in 1972. Joannie's parents were not amused, not in the slightest, and maybe it was more simply bowing to convention, because there was no getting down on one knee and presenting an engagement ring, but simply a discussion one evening and we both agreed to go ahead and get married.

There was no honeymoon, not really. After all, we'd been sleeping together for a year and a half now, so if sex wasn't old hat, it was still not going to be anything wildly different. Sex was good, certainly for me and it seemed to be for her as well. Money was tight, and our apartment was functional and clean, but still small, and married life, like shacked up life, was kind of routine. Joannie wanted kids, eventually, and I just assumed that we'd have them, but I was in no particular hurry, either. We had our degrees to finish and careers to start.

Still, we had our differences. Joan wanted city life, and I was still a country boy. My parents had six kids, but the farm was not going to be split up: it was going to go to me, as the eldest son, if I wanted it. If I didn't, it would go to the next oldest son, and so on, down through the family, until my parents found a kid who wanted to keep the farm going in the family. The money, the insurance, everything else, would be split among the kids who didn't take the farm. The farm was easily the most valuable thing that would be passed down, but it wasn't a liquid asset: as nice as it was, it wouldn't have been easy to sell, and without inheriting any actual cash, whichever of us took the farm would have things tight trying to make a go of it on our own.

Well, I wanted the farm. Lexington was nice enough, but the skyline was growing, what with Central Bank building what passed for a skyscraper, an ugly one at that, in that city, and others planned. I wanted the cool vistas of the farm, the cliffs of the Gorge, kayaking on the river and hunting deer in November. I majored in agriculture, trying to figure out ways to make the farm more profitable, but it didn't take me long to realize that my grandfather and father had pretty much maximized profit there already, and with the end of tobacco farming as a real cash crop on at least the distant horizon, I couldn't see much of a way to really make a lot more money there.

It was the summers that changed my plans. Joannie and I stayed in our apartment during summer break, and I quickly caught on with a construction company. Yeah, I was just an unskilled laborer, but I picked up things quickly, and by the end of that first summer I had worked with the plumbers, the electricians and the framers. I couldn't bring power to the panel box, but I could wire the whole house from the panel box out, and it would look good and professional. I could run the water lines where they needed to be, and make them look good, though I was always on the water supply side, not the waste line side. I knew enough on framing to be careful on how things were done, to leave the least need for modifications to get the plumbing in.

That was when I realized it: as poor as Powell County was, I could start a construction business, using the farm as a base so I wouldn't have to spend money on an office site. My parents were still healthy and would be running the farm themselves for many more years. I could just take a small corner of the tobacco barn for tool storage.

I told Joannie about my plans, and to say that she was less than impressed would be an understatement, but she went along with me, and modified her plans. She had kind of drifted along a bit as far as her major was concerned, but decided to buckle down, and major in social work. After all, in a poor place like eastern Kentucky, social workers were busy, and a state job was a lot better than most of them.

Trouble was, she was going to need her MSW, Masters in Social Work. That was going to mean an extra 1½ years in college, but I loved Joan, and this was a way to make things work for us over the long run.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014:

"Hello, Joan. What are you doing here?" I had enough time after recognizing her to calm down, and managed to get that out in as emotionless a manner as possible. With Donna right there, beside me, there was no other way to express things. Donna had met Joan once, just once, decades ago.

I was watching Joan closely, knowing that she'd be circumspect in anything she said to me; I wanted to be able to read between the lines, to be able to figure out what she really meant from what she said. I was sure that Donna was doing the same.

"Let me introduce my son, Alex to you. Alex, this is an old friend of mine, Carl Rodgers, and," she looked hesitantly, "his wife." I noticed that she didn't tell her son that I was her ex-husband; maybe she'd never told him that she'd been married previously.

"Donna," my wife said, as she extended her hand. Joan had known I was marrying Donna before she left Kentucky, but didn't recognize her, and could have been concerned that maybe my current wife wasn't the same one she knew of back in the late 70s. I have to admit it: I had a bit of a smile on my face as my ex-wife and real wife stood there, not quite toe-to-toe, sizing up each other, the silent competition that all women have.

Donna was 3½ years younger, which certainly helped, but the difference between 62 and 58 just isn't a lot. Still, Joan was a lot taller. But Donna clearly had the better figure, always naturally thin rather than how Joan looked, like a woman who had once been pretty heavy and then lost the weight. It was hard to imagine Joan as ever having been fat, because she was so slender the entire time we were married. Both of them were pretty, but Donna had been prettier, and had kept her looks through the years better than Joan had.