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Perception is reality and fate is not to be toyed with.  Once those two basic premises are accepted, the rest is easier to understand.

The teen years are some of the toughest, primarily due to the line between perception and reality being so blurred.  Add to that the fact that the understanding of fate is so narrow at that point.  High school aged humans still think they are in control of their destiny, something people who have racked up more years have long since figured out to be a misconception.

Bud Edwards adopted the persona of a Bad Boy in order to help overcome the fact that he was an introvert, an insecure introvert at that.  Putting on a worn black leather coat was like sliding on an armor of confidence.  Letting his hair grow longer than most and working in a thick coating of Brylcreem gave Bud a confidence that better grades or athletic ability would have, if he’d possessed them.  A 1939 custom Mercury 8 convertible rounded out the package of the image Bud sought to project rather than the one he saw when he gazed into the mirror slicking back the mop of well oiled hair.

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Had Bud been two years younger, and graduated from Jim Bowie High in ’43 instead of ’45, his options would have been more limited.  But the war was nearly over.  Young men were not needed in the numbers they had been.  Many were free to pursue other choices.  Bud, already used to pursuing other choices, was blessed by the timing.

Joan James, a year younger than Bud, was easily captivated by the persona he’d meticulously engineered over his years at Jim Bowie.  The daughter of a staunchly conservative Baptist family, she saw Bud as the perfect vessel in which she could pour her burgeoning resentments and rebellion.  Part of her attraction to Bud, besides the fact he was a year older, was the fact that she knew her parents would not approve.  The hair.  The leather.  Certainly the car.  Everything Bud had done to create the aura of youthful disrespect established the perfect picture Joan was looking for to show she was becoming her own woman.  The woman she wanted to become was certainly not the one Mr. and Mrs. James had envisioned having given birth to her seventeen years earlier.

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There were snails that proliferated in the gardens and  flower pots of Fort Stockton.  Cornu aspersum to be more specific.  They are hermaphrodites, either snail capable of fertilizing the other by stabbing it with “love darts” after circling around each other.  Eventually they actually come into contact with one another and the romance is consummated by one repeatedly stabbing the other, sometimes for up to an hour.  

Such was the dance that took place between Bud and Joan.  Though there was much circling, and each was more than willing to throw the required “love dart”, timing, inexperience, and lack of opportunity prevailed upon the situation.  As happens, the expectation was far greater than the realization.  The outside forces of Bud’s impending graduation, Joan’s overbearing parents, and a stunning lack of opportunity combined to thwart any effort the two might have sought.  Fate was not to be made to budge in the spring of 1945.

It did, however, prove to be more willing in the summer of 1949.

Bud had left town after graduation, headed for a degree in accounting from Southwest Texas State.  He had written Joan a time or two, but distance proved to be a much bigger obstacle to overcome for either of them.  Like snails on opposite ends of a patio, the romance of circling each other gave way to the reality of life moving forward.  

When Bud returned to Fort Stockton with his degree in accounting he quickly secured a job at Prairie View State Bank.  The only thing remaining of his high school persona was the ’39 Mercury 8 convertible, his wardrobe traded in for appropriate business attire and his hair degreased and conservatively cut.  Joan had dated a few different boys, all of whom were cut from the same cloth, none of whom interested her.  She still had a streak, but one that had been tempered by four years of maturity.  She’d learned the reasons for some of her parents’ more conservative views, while not totally embracing them.  She wasn’t sure she’d ever find the man of her dreams, but was content to not settle for the boy of someone else’s.

Joan had heard Bud was back in town.  She’d even thought that he might give her a call.  When he didn’t, she pondered walking into the bank to see if she might “run into him unexpectedly”.  But then thought better of such a plan.  “He knows where I live,” she told a friend of hers.  “If he has any interest, he can call.  If not, so be it.”

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Bud had been considering just such a call, but fate stepped in to force his hand without picking up the phone.  At the 1949 Fort Stockton Water Carnival, But and Joan ran into each other.  While the Jim Bowie High School Band played Some Enchanted Evening, each quickly learned that love darts may recede, but rarely fall off.  The stars they had in their eyes for each other four years previously shined brighter than ever.

Now 21 and working as a secretary at the local insurance office, Joan was much more free of any parental objections, though she still lived at home.  For their part, Joan’s parents saw far less objectionable in the young man who came calling.  “He’s an accountant.  Works at the bank.  Kid’s got a future,” her father told friends at work, though he was still somewhat put off by the radical Mercury Bud drove.  Bud had explained he was saving up for a new car, but wanted to pay cash, so even that situation was enough to overlook.  Besides, Joan wasn’t getting any younger.  Joan’s older sister had been married by the time she was 19 and had already produced a couple grandchildren a few short years after.  Young maidens had an expiration date at that time in Fort Stockton and Joan was approaching hers.

The chance meeting at the Water Carnival celebrating the free flowing Comanche Springs gave way to a steady stream of dates, phone calls, multiple viewings of the submarine races at Lake Leon from the cockpit of the Mercury 8 and eventually a proposal.  Of course, it was accepted.

By spring of 1950 arrangements were in place for a wedding at Second Baptist.  Groomsmen were a combination of friends from Jim Bowie High and Southwest Texas State, with Bud’s younger brother serving as best man.  Joan’s bridal party consisted of friends from high school, work, and church.  The weather cooperated.  Joan’s mother had worried about staging an outdoor wedding in April, never knowing what Texas weather could be like at that time.

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The only surprise was the wedding gift Bud had for Joan.

Having finally saved enough, Bud purchased a brand new 1950 Mercury Eight Coupe from Frontier Ford-Mercury.  And extra twenty bucks motivated the salesman to drive it to the reception and park it outside the fellowship hall at Second Baptist.  The two tone white over metallic green coupe shined in the afternoon sunlight, creating quite a stir.  Groomsmen wasted no time in decorating it with tin cans and shoes strung behind the back bumper, shave cream on the windows, and notations on the windows in white shoe polish that made the bride blush and the bride’s mother see red.  “I can’t believe they would put such words on a car!  In public!  And a new car, at that!”  

“SHE GOT ME TODAY, I’LL GET HER TONIGHT,” on the back window of the Mercury may have embarrassed the bride and angered the mother of the bride, but was in fact the order of the day.  As they checked in to the Naughty Pine Motel that evening, seeing the back of the Mercury made Leon snicker.  “Guess ‘Just Married’ wasn’t enough?”  Leon said as he winked at Bud. He put them in Room 13, at the end and away from any other guests that had checked.  It was as much a courtesy to the other guests as it was to Bud and Joan.

And thus began the wedded bliss of Mr. and Mrs. Bud Edwards.  Local boy made good.  Local girl made honest.  The morning after their wedding night the couple put the first of many miles on the new Mercury by driving to Amarillo to see Palo Duro Canyon, a section of Route 66, and Camels Head Peak.  Most of the memories were made in their small suite at the Amarillo Hotel, though enough time was carved out for local attractions and for Joan to dash off a postcard to her sister.

Three days later, the couple was heading home in the Mercury with the windows down and Joan sitting as close to Bud as she could, despite the ever increasing heat.  Bud was contemplating just how much money they’d need to save to have a down payment on a home of their own.  For now, they’d move Joan’s things into his small apartment at the Alamo Arms.  Joan was wondering if she might be pregnant already.  Surely, she thought, the odds were good based on what had transpired since the reception at Second Baptist.  Starting a family was what they both wanted.

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