So we decided we better lay low for a while. John said, “Pam, I think we should stay up an old road for a few days.”  So we stopped at a ranger station store to get a few things we would need. We didn’t have an ice chest so we got a loaf of bread, a small jar of mayonnaise, a package of bologna, and a 6 pack of coke.  This wasn’t particularly a good time of the month for me, so we had to get a couple of other necessities.

We found a nice little area that was right by a creek. That was great to have some water available to clean up, brush teeth etc. My hair is naturally curly and it was getting a little longer. I had to use large hair rollers to keep my hair from just curling up to little wadded curls. Especially my bangs.  I looked in the glove box of John’s granny’s car….I couldn’t really find anything but a rubber band. John had a pocket knife, he asked me how big my roller was that I normally use….…so he broke off a small branch and cut it down to about the size of a hair roller. He whittled on it for quite a while. He even tried to hollow it out. I went to the creek, wet my bangs and wrapped them around this wooden makeshift hair roller…used the rubber band to wrap it around and hold it in my hair. It actually worked pretty good. It was a little bit tighter curl than I liked. John had a comb, so I teased my bangs and made them a little straighter that way. I do have to say…..to this day, I can’t stand bologna sandwiches and I don’t drink regular coke anymore. Course back then I only weighed 98 lbs.

When we got settled in at our new little camp site, John got out a set of wedding rings that he had purchased. Oh my goodness, they were beautiful…. I loved them!  I immediately wore the engagement ring.

John gave me the package his mom had made for me. I opened it up. To my amazement there were several pair of underpants and some pantyhose. I guess she belonged to a panty club and they sent her on a regular basis panties and nylons. So at least I had clean undies…..and I used some of John’s shirts to wear with my red a-line skirt while my blouse dried from washing it in the creek. I washed it with the bar of soap we had.

We talked about what we should do next. We decided to go back to John’s aunts house in New Mexico. We at least had this new paper with a notary seal to use for permission for me. I knew how to sign my dad’s name really well. He hated to write notes for us kids for school, so he would always say…. Oh you just go ahead and write the note. So I was gonna sign his name to the permission paper. I also had to sign the notary’s name.   

We gathered up all of our belongings and headed back out to the main highway. We were gonna go to New Mexico, back to John’s aunt’s house.

John had sold his motorcycle so he had $350.00. Plus he worked at the saw mill, so that is how we paid for gas and items we needed. Back then gas was  39  to 40 cents a gallon. John’s wage at the mill was $2.98 an hour. I was a freshman in high school.

We drove and talked for hours. We talked about a house, we talked about business adventures we wanted to try, we had lots of dreams for the future. We also talked about how mad my mom probably was. I always obeyed my parents. This was totally out of my character to go against their wishes. So I was pretty sad and scared to not please my mom. I heard later that when mom called the police in Tennessee, the police officer said, “Are you sure you want to press charges? I would be proud if somebody went to that much trouble to marry my daughter.”

When we finally arrived to New Mexico, John’s niece opened the door. Her mouth dropped opened and she said, mama come here……. (to be continued)