Let’s go back 63 years ago today, say about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, Aug. 26, 1950.
I remember well where I was. Getting married. In that little Lutheran Church in Baltimore, 626 N. Bend Road.
I stood there and watched Betty Bockmiller come down the aisle. When she left (with me), she had become Betty Williams. That’s what the minister said. And I said: “Y-E-A-H!”
I get the shivers when I think about it and all the things that have happened since then. Tidal events, almost.
It was a splendid ceremony, and no bride has ever been more beautiful.
Later, we found our new car parked behind a friend’s house, unmarked, unmolested and with less than 600 miles on the odometer. (From Gastonia to Baltimore.) Leapin’ Leana, my old ’34 Dodge, was as faithful as Tonto was to the Lone Ranger. But it was time to go in debt.
After the ceremony, we said goodbye to family and friends and left Baltimore and headed for the Poconos Mountains, traveling on U.S. 40. Betty was radiant in her going-away outfit and corsage, and I wore my new suit and boutonnière.
Evening came and we stopped at a roadside restaurant where we both ordered hamburgers. It took longer than usual, but the waitress was all smiles when she returned with open-faced burgers with the writing in mayonnaise: “Good luck,” on one and “Best Wishes” on the other.
We would never forget that.
Looking back, we had met by happenstance in college. We both were students at Duke University. She a sophomore and I — after the Air Force — a freshman. It was a Sunday evening and Lutheran students were having a weekly meeting in an East Campus (women’s) classroom.
We were introduced that evening and a large-scale plan was beginning to take shape in my mind. I wanted to know more about that Baltimore beauty. At the time, she was dating someone else. It took a while but that got changed.
By the time I was a junior and she a senior, we had settled down with each other. We went to dances together; we spent time studying on blankets in the spring sunshine.
My KA fraternity held a cabin party, and Betty went back to campus with my frat pin. That meant that we were just this side of being engaged, which then happened over Christmas.
But after the wedding, we spent a week in the Poconos and stopped by New York City on the way home.
“Home.” That was Gastonia, and my wife had never been there. She hadn’t seen the apartment that I had rented — fully furnished.
She had signed on with Graham Ponder, superintendent of Gaston County Welfare Department at the time. She had talked with him on the phone, but hadn’t met him personally.
She was making big decisions, mostly on faith.
After our honeymoon, we stopped by Baltimore to pick up a few things that she needed immediately. We would return later for other items.
It was midnight when we drove through Charlotte on old U.S. 29. Interstate 85
was still on the drawing board. She wondered what we would eat for breakfast. She hadn’t heard of Park ’n
Shop that was open 24 hours
a day. No problem. Got what we needed.
By that time, I had been working as a Gazette reporter for three months.
One of my duties was to write a column called “Things You Auto Know.” My job was to visit the local automobile places, talk to folks there and do a weekly human interest piece about locals looking for autos.
Those were my first columns, and dang! Here we go again.
Bill Williams is a former editor of The Gazette.