The Wedding #16

It is 1982 now, Ron is 19 years old and dating a girl named Bonnie, she is a year younger than he is. Ron never drank until he met Bonnie, Ron was always criticizing Doug because he drank. Bonnie lived in another town, about 20 miles from us, her parents were divorced. She had three other sisters, Nancy, Kay and Linda, they were not married but Nancy had a little girl Heather. Bonnie's mom had put all her daughters, even Bonnie, on birth control pills right after Nancy got pregnant, at this time Bonnie was going on 15 years old. The mothers name was Barb, she told me this when I first met her, I was shocked to hear this.

Ron's drinking became worse, he would even drive his car the 20 miles when drinking. When he told me they were going to get married I told him he was making a mistake. My husband was really mad but what can you tell a child going on 20 years old that was now drinking too much and not listening. I tried to like Bonnie, but I caught her in one lie after another. Wayne s sisters lived in the same town as Bonnie and our niece told us all about Bonnie and her life style with boys before she met Ron. See this is what happens when you give a child birth control pills and they know they will not become pregnant.

1983, time to get married, we had reconciled our self to the fact they were getting married and had the wedding at our house and the reception will be at the VFW in Bonnie's town. The wedding went off pretty well considering we could not pack one more person in our house, it was a nice turn out. The reception was very nice, we had planned for just the right amount of people, but Bonnie's dad was at the bar and everyone that came in he told them to help themselves to the buffet, these people were not invited, just came in for a drink, we almost ran out of food. I would not have minded but Bonnie's folks did not help pay for anything. I was glad to see everyone have a good time and thankful there were no fights, because everyone was drinking quite a bit.

Bonnie got pregnant right away, so the kids decided to stay with us until the baby was born. Sarah was born on November 14, 1983, such a sweet baby, she had blue eyes and dark hair. The kids got an apartment when Sarah was six months old, about a mile from us. My husband had gotten a job at Haworth in Holland, they make office furniture and sell it all over the world. Ron had just started there also in the factory assembling the office furniture and Bonnie started working as a waitress and I baby sat Sarah.

I liked to go with my friend and look for old bottle dumps, these are dumps that have no garbage in them, we did find some nice old bottles and some day I may write about these adventures. In 1984 Ron bought ne a metal detector, the name of the detector was a White Classic SL for my birthday. I still have it and use it, not so much since I had my heart attack, but the years I did use it was so nice, I would be out on the beach sometimes half the day. I found lots of change, watches, necklaces, pins, tokens and just junk. One time I had just started detecting when a lady came up to me and said a women had just left and she had lost her gold bracelet with diamonds on it right over there by the water. She also gave me the phone number in case I found it, well I did find it and I did charge $20.00 if it was worth a lot to get it back, after all I did not have to return it at all. I phoned the woman (she was from New York), she came over and was insulted that I was charging her for something that already belonged to her. I then told her to take it, and I also told her it was people like her that made us detectors to keep our finds and I turned around and slammed the door, I was so mad and sorry I had called her. Earlier that week I took the bracelet to be appraised and it was worth $350.00, that is why I believe it was worth a $20.00 reward. I had found countless class rings, I tracked down the owner but never charged them anything, was just glad they got them back, because most kids pay for there own.

By the time we moved here the kids were older and doing their own thing and I had time to pursue my hobbies as well. Ron was married and had his own home, Doug was working, and behaving himself, he also had his own apartment. I had planted my first garden and it was such a success, I had tomatoes, squash, corn, potatoes, green beans, carrots and I did not even use fertilizer on the soil. I was also was raising chickens and rabbits, which Doug had brought home and wanted me to take care of them. I raised them until I hurt my back and then Doug's friend said he would take them, he had a farm. I would not have given them to him if I knew he was going to eat them, I was just heart sick, I had made them all trust me and I went and gave them to some one that butchered them. We wanted to buy this home but the owners kid wanted it, he was going to get married, so we knew we were in for another move, we lived here from June of 1979 until September of 1988.