A Story of My Life, Part 19: 1992, continued

It's getting to be quite late at night, and I'm not the least bit sleepy, so I've decided to write the next installment of the Stories of My Life.

We left off with my husband being arrested for "lewd and lascivious behavior to a child", while he was on a vacation separate from me, in Daytona Beach, Florida.

It came as a total shock to me. I noticed no untoward proclivities in my husband. He was a homebody, a modest man. He had a hobby--building model aircraft--and it kept him home and in his basement workshop at night. During the day, we worked together, at the same place, a winery.

His hobby required mechanical ability, finesse, and the ability to follow complicated blueprints...I could build a bookcase, I could build a birdhouse, myself. But a model helicopter that actually flew? No. I admired his hobby.

Ed loved flight. He joined the Navy as a young man, about 18 years of age, on the understanding that he could go to flight school, after passing some tests. What the recruiter DIDN'T tell him was, that any military pilot has to have 20/20 vision, without corrective lenses. Ed wore glasses, thick glasses.

So the Navy sent him to Labrador. He was stationed there through most of his service, manning a radio station that was part of America's Early Warning Defense System. Labrador--Goat Island--a very cold place, very far north.

Ed, my Eds, my Eddie Bear! How I loved that man!

He had such good brains--such good, practical, problem solving abilities. He was a natural engineer, even though he never went to school for it. He went, on the GI bill, to study cost accounting, instead. He got a job in Phoenix, Arizona, first, with a Fortune 500 company; but life in the white-shirt-narrow-black-tie corporate environment at the time just wasn't for him. He wanted something looser, something more active.

So he came back home and became a big fish in the little winery pond where we both worked. It suited him much better.

I admired Eds so much! He had this one rare quality--grace under pressure. It was an extremely rare thing to see this guy blow his cool. He could really handle an emergency.

It made him a little bit remote, a little aloof. He really was sort of a hard person to get to know. I enjoyed the challenge, to tell you the truth. His aloofness was tempered with kindness. He was an extremely mild-mannered person. One felt he wouldn't willingly hurt anyone in the world. He had discretion (something I notoriously lacked!). He left unsaid those things which might be displeasing.

So: I made treaty with the bailbondsman on the phone, though I was nearly fainting from shock. I went to Ed's bank, and got the necessary draft wired to free Eddie from the Dade County Jail. I had to keep my face on, somehow. I had to go to work--to explain that Ed was delayed in Florida but would be home soon. I had to explained to the kids that their dad would be gone an extra couple of days, but not to worry.

Ed made it home. I was so glad to see him! At least he wasn't dead in a car crash.

I loved him, and I was happy to have him home again, but he really had some explaining to do.

He told me a story.

He told me that he thought the windows of the hotel were iodized, so that they appeared black from the outside but let filtered light through, from the inside. He never noticed the drapes or the drape pulls, he said. He got up in the morning, and because he sleeps in the buff (I can attest to that!), he walked to the window, naked, to look out upon the day and see what the weather was like.

Some young girl, standing on the terrace below the window, saw him and started screaming. Before he knew it, his hotel room was filled with police. They handcuffed him and took him off to the jail.

That was his story.

I bought it, for the present moment, at least.