ESCAPING ILLINOIS

On our 25th anniversary our daughter Martha, home from college, cooked dinner for a few friends at our house in Woodridge, Illinois. A couple of days before the party, Wally called a friend and had him scrounge up a Royal Copenhagen Christmas plate picturing the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbor.

I’d tried to get Wally to buy that particular plate twice before. The first year we were married, Marshall Field’s advertised it for $10.99. Years later we went to a stamp show in Atlantic City, where Wally sold some of his extra stamps for a big profit, I found the Little Mermaid plate in a shop on the Boardwalk for about $25. Wally refused to buy it for me.

I don’t know how much he paid for that anniversary present. He was upset with me for not bing impressed with his last minute purchase. I wanted him to take me to Paris.

At the party I looked around at our handful of guests and thought, “Wally and I have been through difficult times, but we’ve made it this far. We’ll have a big party to celebrate our 50th.”

Inexplicably, the next year became increasingly difficult. I was at a loss as to why Wally was so angry and abusive. Finally, I went to my boss and said, “I’ve got to get away.” I went home, put sleeping bags in the trunk and the folded tent on top of the car. David and I headed east towards Pennsylvania, where we lived before moving back to Chicago.

David was 13 years old. The second night I drove into campground on a dark, rainy night fall. David and I set up the tent in the rain and climbed inside to go to bed. As I fell asleep in my cozey sleeping bag, I thought, “If I can do this, I don’t really need a husband.”

We camped in Cook’s Forest and at World’s End, where Martha went for Girl Scouts Camp. David was excited when a bear wandered into our campground. At a visit at my friend Mary Grieb’s home in Upper Darby, David and I both felt happy and relaxed.

Going home as we came to a highway interchange at Toledo, I said to David, “We can be home tonight, or we can detour to Michigan for a couple of days.”

David said, “Let’s go to Michigan.”

I turned north to Birmingham, the Detroit suburb where the family lived for four years and where David was born. We stayed with David’s godmother, Betty Rahn, in her daughter Susan’s apartment. With friends like the Rahns, even sleeping in our sleeping bags on the floor was fun.

I learned several things on that trip. First, David and I were both more at ease and happier when out of range of Wally’s angry outbursts. Second, I could travel on my own, do all the driving, having fun whether visiting old friends or primitive camping, and making decisions without the advice of a man. .