In August of 1981, after a very short engagement, Marty and I got married. We were both just 23 years old—which, looking back, really does seem awfully young. Marty had just left behind a lifetime in Georgia, moving away from home and coming north to Massachusetts. Almost at once, the two of us were beginning an entirely new life together.
A gazebo beside the lake
We were married in a gazebo beside the lake at Coggshall Park in Fitchburg. It was a beautiful little ceremony in a peaceful setting, surrounded by the water and trees. Later, we gathered with family and friends for a small reception at the Old Mill in Westminster. Nothing about the day needed to be grand. It was warm, personal and full of happiness.
A honeymoon measured in miles
After the wedding, we went to Rockport for the weekend. That was the quiet beginning, but our real honeymoon was waiting just beyond it: an eight-week road trip through the American West, with plans to visit as many national parks as we possibly could.
We packed a tent, sleeping bags and the rest of our camping gear, and we had about a thousand dollars to spend for as long as we could make it last. It was not a luxury trip by any stretch of the imagination. We camped, watched every dollar and kept moving. But it was exactly the kind of adventure that suited us, and we spent an incredible stretch of time seeing the national parks and landscapes of the West together.
Home—wherever we could make it
We returned to Massachusetts at the end of October and walked almost immediately into a really fun Halloween party. It was a lively homecoming, though there was one practical problem: we had no place of our own to live.
So we moved into my parents' little cabin on Bear Hill Pond. The cabin had no central heat—only wood stoves—and all of the plumbing was outside. Our first month home, November, was spent fixing those basics and trying to make the place ready for winter.
We lived there for three years. Some of those winters were brutally cold, and daily life required more effort than it would have in an ordinary house. There was wood to cut and carry, stoves to tend and a long list of little problems that always needed solving. Somehow, though, we made it all work.
