The Manic Marriage

 

I had been a park ranger all of two weeks and I was already in love.  Not just with the gorgeously carved landscape of the Pinnacles that rose up all around me, but with a young lady who lived about 300 miles away.   I had met Karen the previous year when I was hitchhiking through Big Sur and needed a place to stay.  I wandered into her campsite and we ended up sharing a sleeping bag together under towering coastal redwoods….after which I made several hitch hiking forays down to the Orange County town of La Habra where she lived.  She was barely eighteen at the time, and I was a not-much-more worldly wise twenty-three, living on mescaline and unemployment checks in Santa Cruz, California.

 So here I was, now gainfully employed and with a spacious 12’ x 16’ one-room cabin, tucked amid the sycamore trees and chain ferns of Bear Gulch, in the shadow of the rugged High Peaks.  Within a month I had my own car, an old Plymouth Valiant, and the notion to drive down to La Habra forthwith to bringeth my fair damsel back with me to our little domicile in the chaparral.  And so it came to pass.  Karen took up residence with me in the cool days of late February as I learned my trade as an interpretive park ranger.

 There was only one catch.  We had to keep the fact that I was living in sin a secret from the strict Baptist park superintendent and the even stricter Mennonite head ranger.  So Karen stayed hidden indoors most of the time, or would venture out disguised as just another tourist schlepping around the park.  I’m not sure what made me think we could carry on this charade for very long because within weeks the head ranger’s two sneaky little sons figured it out and quickly reported our indiscretions to daddy.  Even more quickly, I was confronted by said father and told, in no uncertain terms, that I’d better get rid of the girl or get married.  As I was still in a trial period and in danger of losing my dream job, I had to make a hard and fast decision.

 “Well, I guess we’ll get married” was the obvious choice.  And the quickest way to accomplish our union was to head for Reno, Nevada where we could tie the knot within 24 hours.  But we did not want to do the deed alone.  We wanted some of our close friends to share in the festivities.  So we contacted Stan, Steve and Pam who readily agreed to participate in the celebration.  So the stage was set.  We gassed up the Valiant one mid-March afternoon and headed north for the two hour drive to Stan’s house.  We smoked at least one joint along the way.

 When we reached our destination, which was Stan’s parents’ house in Los Altos, we found him sitting halfway up an apricot tree, stoned out on acid.  Nevertheless, he eagerly jumped in the back of the Valiant and off we went for our second pickup….Steve and Pam in San Francisco.  They lived out in the avenues somewhere and were ready and willing when we finally found their apartment.  They joined Stan in the back seat as we made a beeline over the Bay Bridge, and east toward the Sierra Nevada.  Over the next few hours, much weed was circulated through the Valiant’s vinyl interior, and spirits were very high as we climbed ever upward.

 As darkness descended so did some unanticipated snow, and soon enough we were forced to find a set of chains somewhere so we could continue on our madcap marital adventure.  It was through sheer will that the five of us, in our spaced out condition, were able to install said chains and continue our journey to “the biggest little city in America”.  We pulled into Reno close to midnight, found a cheap motel, and rented a room for all five of us.  Karen and I took one bed, and Stan, Steve and Pam took the other.  But any semblance of sleep was to elude us as we congratulated ourselves on having made it over the mountains by taking mescaline.

 Came the dawn and we miraculously found the county courthouse where, after filling out the necessary paperwork, Karen and I were wed in a ceremony so brief I cannot remember any of it.  I do remember driving back up the Sierras, this time in bright sunshine.  We stopped somewhere near Donner Summit where we all got out and had a snowball fight.  Then back into the car for the drive down into San Francisco to drop off Steve and Pam, and then on down to the Peninsula to disgorge Stan not far from the tree we picked him up at.  But still before us was the two hour drive back down to the Pinnacles and our little cabin of dreams.  We arrived just as the late afternoon sun was throwing long shadows through the live oaks and gray pines.

 But here is the kicker.  After settling back down to domestic bliss, I was never asked to show a marriage license nor any other proof that we were legally wed.  We could have faked it, and we probably should have.  The marriage lasted just over two years, after which we amicably separated and I bought a copy of “How to Do Your Own Divorce in California”.  I learned how to do all the paper work myself.  Karen was a dutiful respondent. She and I split up our record collection, and she took the dog, and I returned to my life as a solitary ranger in a strange land.  In the end, the divorce cost me $18 in filing fees.

 And don’t think this valuable lesson was not taken to heart.  A couple of years later when I had fortuitously met another lady friend, and I was just about to move to southern Utah for a job at Canyonlands National Park, the two of us agreed to buy a couple of cheap rings, and masquerade as an old married couple.  Of course, the ruse worked.  And in the long run it was a lot less complicated and a lot less painful than making a midnight run to Reno.