Libby’s Admission of Guilt

On March 31, 2015March 31, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Uncategorized3 Comments

A few years after Libby and I were married the radio offered two primary music genres, either “pop” music which, at the time, featured the Bee Gees and Elton John or country music which was highlighting a new band on the rise named Alabama. Libby and I enjoyed many of the songs of that Fort Payne band, so when it was announced that Alabama would be playing a concert in Chattanooga I decided to surprise Libby with two tickets so that she and one of her friends could have “a girls night out”.

Now Libby was quick to explain to friends that, at the time, she had a schoolgirl crush on Randy Owen, the bearded lead singer for Alabama, so after enjoying the concert, the girls decided to stay and try to get some autographs. When they finally got to the front of the line for their autographs Randy asked Libby if she would like to have her picture made with him. The star struck Libby thought it would a great way to cap off a fun evening so she said yes. That’s when things got interesting; as Libby posed shoulder to shoulder with her new best friend Randy Owen, she soon became uncomfortable when he put his arm around her for the picture, but that was nothing compared to what happened next.

With several, young girls screaming and yelling in the line behind Libby, the volume of noise was pretty high as they posed for pictures, so it was understandable that Libby had a hard time hearing Randy when he asked her if she wanted a kiss. It was unclear from the explanation of the events whether it was Randy Owen’s boldness, Libby’s naïveté or the groupie noise from the line behind them, or all three, that combined to make communication difficult, but all Libby heard was a garbled sentence. Libby said that she knew Randy had asked her a question so she turned to face him, leaning in closer so she could hear him above the screams and asked, “What did you say …?.” But, just as Libby turned her head toward him, Randy interpreted her movements as consent and proceeded to kiss a very flabbergasted Libby on the mouth with his arm still around her shoulder so she was unable to move.

Later that evening when Libby got home I asked her how she enjoyed the concert and I remember a very strange look on her face. Libby said to me, “Barry we need to talk….”, five words that, from Libby, almost always prefaced a long unpleasant conversation. For those who knew Libby’s personal code of ethics and the high moral standard that guided her decisions, you will understand more than most people, how foolish and guilty Libby felt after what had happened following the concert. Libby’s guilt was magnified since she joked with me before the concert saying, “Are you sure you trust me to go to the concert without you knowing Randy Owen will be there?”

I knew without even hearing the details that Libby had done nothing wrong, but she insisted on explaining what happened and telling me how embarrassed she felt for letting herself get caught up in the moment and acting like a silly school girl. I kept trying to tell her that there was nothing to be ashamed of and that she was not at fault, but it seemed that no amount apologies or discussions relieved the guilt in her mind. I would like to be able to report that I cupped her hands in mine, looked deep into her eyes and reassured her that my love was forever and I was not worried about silly circumstance at a concert….

The truth of what happened next was nothing like the tender romantic interlude that I just described. I said to Libby a little too enthusiastically, “You know, if you feel that guilty about kissing Randy Owen” (this is the point at which Libby reminded me quiet forcibly that she didn’t kiss Randy, Randy kissed her). “Okay sorry” I said, starting over, “You know if you feel that guilty about Randy Owen kissing you , maybe I could kiss Christie Brinkley and we could call it even”?

Looking back now, I probably could have handled that differently, although my off-the-cuff remark stopped Libby from talking about the concert since she elected not to talk to me at all for long time, but it didn’t do a lot to help build our relationship.

The irony here is that two years ago Libby was invited to attend a pink gala celebrity concert complete with limo ride and a pink carpet entrance to benefit the MaryEllen Locher Foundation and honoring cancer survivors. The celebrity that was giving the concert was Randy Owen and Libby and I were invited back stage for a private reception before the concert but when given the chance to talk to Randy this time she refused, keeping an arms length away from him all evening. I couldn’t help but tease her just a little and say, “Libby, just say hi to him, he probably remembers you.” I detected a slight blush in Libby’s face just before I had to avert my eyes because I was getting “the look”.

Libby’s Love of Children

On March 14, 2015March 14, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Uncategorized4 Comments

With our wedding, honeymoon and several arguments behind us, Libby would graduate from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the spring of 1980 having completed her student teaching at Howard Elementary School, an inner city school in downtown Chattanooga. Libby’s impact on the students, faculty and administration was immediate and obvious at Howard and every other place in which she taught. Libby had been teaching children since she was fourteen years old in a Sunday School class at her dad’s church, but now she was getting paid to do the thing that she loved most and it was obvious to all who who knew her that she had found her true calling in life.

Now, with Libby working we had two incomes and no college tuition to pay so there was a huge weight lifted off of our financial shoulders. With less financial strain on our relationship we had only minimal disagreements until we clashed over an idea that Libby had while teaching at Howard Elementary when she decided that way too many of her kindergarten students were from broken homes and they would benefit from a positive family experience. Libby thought that the best way for many of her students to have that positive experience would be to bring two or three of her students to our house every weekend so we could take them hiking or fishing on Saturday and then take them to Sunday School and Church on Sunday. Libby had everything worked out in her mind, including the fact that she would simply bring them home on Friday and they would stay at our house until she took them back to school with with her on Monday morning, Then as the year progressed we would be able to keep all of her students at least for a few days and give each of them a positive Christian influence.

Libby’s heart was in the right place but she and I had to have a serious discussion about a few of the practical details that she had failed to consider in her zealous approach to changing her kindergartner’s circumstances such as liability insurance coverage, crossing state lines with minor children, and class action lawsuits. Libby thought everyone looked at the world the same way she did, and although it would be nice if that were so, I had to continually introduce a cynical realism into her pure, idealist world.

In the end, we never kept any children at our home but in spite of that, Libby’s love impacted nearly all of the children that she taught and many times their parents as well. As a compromise for not keeping children in our home, Libby and I spent several weekends in the inner city projects visiting the homes of her students to try and convince their moms that they needed to take an active role in their child’s education, praying with them and giving them books to read to their children.

Libby had some unusual teaching challenges as she taught at Howard Elementary, Graysville Elementary and Chattanooga Valley Elementary; a rule follower by nature, Libby found it completely amazing that people who knew the rules would choose to break one or more of those rules. One memorable challenge involved an unruly, spoiled little kindergarten boy (whom I will call Jonathan). Jonathan was constantly getting into trouble, he was the type of boy that had never been disciplined at home and he found out early in life that a good old fashioned temper tantrum was the key to getting anything he wanted. Now, besides being a rule follower, Libby was confident in her decisions (some may say stubborn) and it was nearly impossible to change her mind once she made it up, and she had made up her mind that Jonathan had a scared, loving, insecure little boy trapped inside a short-tempered bully who needed some discipline and direction in his life, and if his parents wouldn’t provide it then she would.

I was regaled nearly every night at the dinner table with stories of Jonathan being involved in fights, kicking a teacher and bullying other children in their kindergarten class. One day when Libby was trying to correct some errant behavior, Jonathan kicked her in the shin and tried to bite her arm. Libby calmly picked Jonathan up and wrapped her arms around him holding him tight. She had her teaching assistant take the other children out to the playground and Libby continued to restrain Jonathan throughout recess and for most of the remainder of the day. She would talk softly to him saying, “Miss Libby loves you and I only want you to listen to me and be obedient”. When Miss Libby finally released her lovingly firm grip, Jonathan was sullen and quite until he got on the bus to go home, then he told his mom about “that mean old lady teacher” that had picked on him and caused him to miss recess.

The following day Jonathan’s mother stormed into the principal’s office and demanded that the principal withdraw her son from the school and insisted that Mrs. Gilley be disciplined for being so hard on her son. She informed the principal that she would be moving him to a better school with better teachers. That evening when Libby arrived home she cried, saying that she had failed Jonathan and began to question her effectiveness as a teacher. My comforting words for Libby went something like this, “He’s a spoiled brat with an overindulgent mom and you should be happy she transferred him. I would call his new teacher and, as a professional courtesy, warn her of the impending doom!”

Not one to wallow very long in self pity, Libby soon got up from the couch and got busy, she found out where Jonathan was being transferred and the name of his new teacher, then she called Jonathan’s new teacher at home. I thought Libby was going to take my advice and warn the teacher about Jonathan’s behavior problems and tell this new teacher what to expect from the entire psychotic family but no; the whole conversation between Libby and this other teacher involved Libby trying to get Jonathan back into her classroom. (This was one of many examples why, as parents, you would much rather have Libby teach your children than me). Libby told the new teacher that Jonathan was beginning to respond to her, but by changing teachers and schools now it would be the worst possible thing for him reinforcing his manipulative behavior. Libby wanted the teacher’s help in convincing Jonathan’s mother that they should return Jonathan to Libby’s classroom and allow her to continue working with him. Libby’s plea to the teacher and later to her principal fell on deaf ears. The saddest part of this story is that Libby never saw Jonathan again, she did keep up with his progress, or lack thereof, until several years later when she learned that he was in juvenile detention and once more Libby felt like she had let Jonathan down.

The conflict with “Jonathan” epitomizes the commitment and desire Libby had for each child entrusted into her care and I marveled how quickly and completely she could fall in love with the children of strangers throughout our first seven year of marriage, but then we had our own children and things really changed at our house.

Bird Brain Argument

On March 7, 2015April 19, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I would like to take this opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings about Libby’s and my relationship because, frankly, it’s a little embarrassing when people are fooled into believing that we shared some sort of fairytale marriage . I apologize if my selective memory led some to believe that we enjoyed a type of nirvana relationship, because I can promise you, we did not.

Although I may have concentrated my writings on some of the surreal, blissful moments together (a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer has a way of filtering out some of the nonessential periphery in a relationship) we struggled with communication which lead to arguments, as we both said things that we later regretted. I will admit that I minimize their severity in my writings because I now see the humor in some of those arguments, like the one that happened in February of last year during some of the worst days of Libby’s illness:

Libby was always marveling at God’s creation and from the time we moved into our current home in April of 1992 we seemed to have more than our fair share of wild animals traipsing through our yard. At certain times of the year, for two or three weeks in row we would see the same 12 deer in our front yard every time we pulled in our driveway and even that caused an argument.

After seeing the deer every evening for three weeks in a row, Libby noticed that the deer were gone on this particular night. When she came into the house she told me that I needed to take a flashlight, go into the woods, find the deer and count them to make sure all 12 were there because she was worried something may have happened to them. I laughed because I thought she was joking but then I got “the look” which meant she was serious, so I responded in a most loving and gentle manner saying, “Libby, that’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard! There is no way I’m going out in the woods at 11:00 at night looking for a bunch of stupid deer.” Undeterred, she would gently say that they were part of God’s creation and they weren’t stupid. I laughed again and said that if they are not stupid then they should be able to survive in the woods without my help”………. That’s how that argument started.

Sometimes those same deer would eat Libby’s ornamental plants and then she wasn’t nearly as concerned about their wellbeing, but the real nuisance animals were the skunks, snakes, geese, coyotes and of course the dreaded red bird. We had this bird that we assumed must have been a male defending his territory because every morning at sunrise he would peck on the window in our pantry. Evidently, when he saw his own reflection in the glass he thought another male was moving in on his woman (or women? Not sure if they are monogamous). I tried scaring him away, changing the reflection by turning on the pantry light, hanging fabric in the window and shining a bright light through the glass but the pecking continued off and on every morning for months.

In February of 2014 a few weeks after I brought Libby home from the hospital we had a particularly bad night, I had spent most of the night in the chair beside her as she suffered from a crushing headache and continued to throw up until she was physically exhausted. Then just before dawn the headache eased off and she finally fell asleep, it was at that exact moment that we heard the familiar pecking on the pantry window.

Libby slowly looked up at me with a pitiful plea and said, through clinched teeth, “Barry, Honey, can you do something about that stupid bird”. I had felt helpless all night, only able to rub her temples and hold her head while she threw up in her pink bowl, but now finally, I had a task to fulfill and so without the least bit of hesitation I said to her, “Sure babe, I will take care of it. You just go back to sleep.” Libby always chose her words carefully, even when she was sick, so my directive was clear, especially since she modified the noun “bird” with the adjective “stupid”.

There are some priorities in life that can change with circumstances and with everything else going on in my life, a red bird hopped up on testosterone was pretty low on my priority list. It had snowed several inches during the night which seemed to create an eerie silence as I slipped outside that morning cradling my 12 gauge pump-action shotgun. Now, standing under my car port, at the edge of the snow in my bare feet, with no guilt whatsoever, I promptly shot the “stupid” bird, chambering a second round, just in case it was needed.

To this day, there are three very distinct images that are burned into my mind from that moringing. First of all, there was the amazing amount of noise that a 12 gauge shotgun makes when discharged into eerie silence at 6 AM. Second, is the degree to which a red bird stands out in an otherwise, solid white snow-covered yard. But the third, and the most vibrant image that sticks out in my mind was the look on Libby’s face as I walked back into the living room carrying the proverbial smoking gun. When I left the room a few minutes ago, Libby could barely hold her head up when she gave instructions to “…do something about that stupid bird”. Now, looking at her sitting bolt upright in bed with her mouth agape and her eyes wide with amazement, I was suddenly much less confident in my ability to interpret my wife’s sentences.

Libby had a look of complete horror on her face, as she asked, “Did you shoot my red bird?” (Just a note here in my defense, a minute ago, it was a “stupid bird”, now suddenly, it was “my red bird”?). It didn’t help calm the tension in our home when, throughout the day, as visitors came to our house they would say, “Hey did you’ll know there is dead red bird in your back yard?” Later on that day, I decided to get rid of the evidence and put a little fresh snow over the crime scene..

Libby was very upset with me for days, but later on we did talk it out: I apologized for shooting the stupid bird and Libby apologized for the things she said about me. Libby then went on to explain that the reason she was so upset with me was that she never told me to kill the bird, she just wanted me to “scare him” so he would quit banging on the window, besides she said that red birds are heaven’s messengers. My reply started the next argument when I said, ” Well I think that the last message may be a little late getting there….”.

Birthday Wishes

On March 4, 2015March 4, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Birthday10 Comments

I have made a concerted effort to avoid the easy path of posting overly emotional articles about some of the more gut wrenching discussions that Libby and I had, especially during the last year of her life; attempting instead, to give the reader an overall view of our friendship, courtship, marriage and family. This post is a break from that trend as I remember our date on Libby’s birthday a year ago today:

On Monday March 3rd 2014 one year ago today I was preparing to leave for work as one of the many sweet ladies who had volunteered to sit with Libby arrived at our house just before 8 AM. Libby was spending all of her time in the hospital bed which was set up in our living room and at this stage of her illness she was sleeping nearly 23 hours a day. I went over to her bed, kissed her goodbye and whispered into her ear, “happy birthday” but not loud enough to wake her.

My meeting that morning in Middle Tennessee was short and very soon I was on my way back home. Since our decision to sign up with Hospice care after the last failed Chemo treatment, my time at work was normally not very productive because of my inability to focus. Time away from the house did, however, give me perspective and time to think, which is exactly what I was doing during the hour and a half drive back home on this Monday afternoon. I wanted to make Libby’s birthday special for her and although I would not have admitted it to anyone at the time, I knew in mind that this would be Libby’s last birthday.

I had been thinking of what I could do for several days and I finally had everything worked out in my head so I stopped on the way home to pick up the remaining items that I needed for the formal birthday meal I had planned. My tux was laid out along with Libby’s nicest dress, dinner was planned and the candles were ready. Now, I wasn’t delusional, I knew she probably wouldn’t eat much, if anything, and I would not be able get her into the dress, but I had a plan.

When I got home, I pulled my chair next to Libby’s bed and told her for the second time, “happy birthday”, she looked up at me and raised her thin arm out from under and the cover and spread her fingers out, which meant that she wanted to hold hands, I took her hand as she whispered to me, “Is it my birthday?” I said yes and then I told her that I had a surprise for her. Libby said, “What is it?” I told her that she would have to just wait and see. Now, for those who knew Libby well, you will understand what I mean when I say that Libby didn’t like surprises, and yet she did. You see, Libby had no patience once she found out she was about get a surprise, and she certainly didn’t want to wait to find out what it was. In fact, from the time we started dating Libby would use bribery, stealth and trickery to find out what she was getting from me. Sometimes, I think she had more fun trying to uncover the secret than she did actually receiving the gift.

I told Libby that I had an evening planned for the two of us starting with some flowers. I stood up to get the flowers, but she held my hand tightly and said wearily with her eyes closed, “Just stay her and tell me about them, don’t leave”. So I described each flower as Libby smiled. Then I told her I had planned to fix her favorite dishes so I would need to get the meal started and then I would be getting dressed up and I planned to lay her dress out on top of her blanket so she would be “dressed” for our date. As I attempted to get up Libby tightened her grip on my hand and said again, “Just tell me about it…I probably want eat any of it anyway.”

I know now, that I was slowing loosing Libby a little more each day and the only way that she could experience some things now was in her mind. So I told her my plans to cook for her, then change into my tux, put her dress on top of her blanket, light every candle in the house and turn out all of the lights. Libby smiled and I could see from her expressions that she had “our date movie” playing in her mind. I described the menu that I had planned to cook for her birthday meal, starting with Caesar salad followed by blackened talapia, Sister Schubert’s dinner yeast rolls and roasted new potatoes with garlic. Libby would nod her head and lick her lips as if tasting every course as I described each dish, staring with her favorite, Caesar salad, then I asked if she wanted fresh ground pepper on her salad and she would nod yes. I would ask if she wanted fresh butter on the rolls and she answered, “Sure, why not?”

As Libby “enjoyed” her birthday meal, I wanted her to experience everything that I had planned for her so I described the black tux that “I now had on” and taking some artistic license, I told her how I really looked good in my tux and how I was really rockin’ the pink polka dot bow tie. Although she still didn’t’ open her eyes, Libby did not like the fact that I was bragging even in our imaginary experience, so she tugged sharply at my hand to get me back on track.

Continuing the fantasy I told her, “I have helped you put your favorite dress on for our night out”, she asked, “Which one?” I told her it was the dress that she wore to Nathan’s wedding and she nodded her head, satisfied that I had made the right choice. I told her that I had put on her shoes that matched her dress, but her smile quickly turned to a frown; knowing exactly what she was thinking, I said that I also brought her tennis shoes to walk around in just in case her feet started hurting, and she started smiling again.

And so for nearly an hour our amazing date continued as I kept spinning my tales adding more and more details, but soon Libby was sleeping as she relaxed her grip on my hand she pulled her arm back under the cover with a slight shiver. I tucked her in under her soft pink blanket as she started softly snoring.

Our “night on the town” to celebrate Libby’s 56 birthday was over.

The Big Ice Cream Fight——– The Honeymoon Was Over

On February 28, 2015February 28, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Chapter 133 Comments

I should preface this tale of woe by explaining that Libby’s dad the Rev. Jimmie Love Willis, spoiled his girls, especially when it came to their sweet tooth cravings. If any of Brother Willis’s girls (Libby, her four sisters or their mom) wanted something from the store such as ice cream, or if they needed some sugar or cocoa to make a desert, their dad was quick to respond to the need, grabbing his car keys and jacket as he headed out the door; complaining only after the second or third trip back to store. Full truth disclosure here, Rev. Jimmie Willis’ behavior may not have been completely altruistic since he was known to indulge in an occasional sweet from time to time.

At the complete other end of the spectrum from the Willis family was my family. Our family lived further out in the country, and although we had Pace’s Grocery (the original convenience store) a trip to “town” was a big deal that my mom planned out and scheduled once every other week, on Saturday morning, while the bed sheets were drying on the clothesline. My mom was the queen of making do with what she had when she was cooking, and because of that we had some unusual tasting dishes at times, but we rarely made sudden trips to the store, especially to stores who didn’t give Green Stamps. In the evenings after my dad arrived home from work, just after supper, he took off his boots which signaled the end of his day, after which he rarely left the house unless one of us boys was hurt badly enough to require stitches and then only if they couldn’t get find enough butterfly bandages to pull it together.

With that brief background into Libby’s and my families it should be easy to understand how foreign the actions of Rev. Willis appeared to me and yet how normal they appeared to Libby. These differences helped cause one of the biggest fights that we had about, of all things, ice cream; and as usual when two stubborn people disagree on something, the source of the problem was soon forgotten as the conflict got bigger and bigger.

Just a few weeks following the return from our scuba diving, beach combing, month long honeymoon, Libby and I were sitting in our living room one evening when she said to me, “I just checked the freezer and we are out of ice cream”, I said, “Yea, I noticed that as well…” Libby looked at me and said, “Will you run to the store and pick some up?” I told Libby, “Sure, no problem, we’ll pick some up the next time we go to the store.” Libby seemed to be getting more and more upset with me and said, “I don’t want to wait until the next time we go to the store, I want some ice cream now.” Then she made some comments about it being my job, and about how her daddy would get it for her. Words like spoiled and pig headed were batted back and forth between us as the argument grew. Libby thought that getting ice cream would be a way to show how much I loved her and I decided that Libby was being selfish and completely irrational. We were both stubborn and both wrong.

The intensity of the argument grew relative to its volume and we both said things for which we were ashamed, but the thing that neither of us realized at the time was that the first 21 years of our lives had far more influence over our current actions than the last two months of marriage and the marriage ceremony did not magically change that.

We eventually settled our argument or at least called a truce and because of that argument and few more after that, we learned a valuable lesson about the need to set some boundaries that had to be maintained regardless of the intensity of the argument, in addition we eventually decided on some “rules of engagement” for all future arguments:

No telling other friends or family about our disagreements in an attempt to get them on our side
No leaving the house (we would, however, go to separate rooms to cool off)
No threats of “going home to mom”
And finally the big one, no threats of divorce

Although it may sound foolish to some, we could now argue with a measure of security because we had boundaries and with that framework in place, along with time and some much needed maturity for both of us, our arguments became less and less frequent and much less intense than the legendary Ice Cream Fight.

A Fresh Perspective

On February 22, 2015June 5, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Uncategorized2 Comments

The stories that I have been posting about Libby’s and my relationship are enjoyable to relive, but one of the consequence of such reflections is the tendency to become self absorbed in our history and in our own lives, but failing to see that others are hurting. Most of the time it was Libby is who reminded me to keep my head up and my eyes opened to the needs of others. I thought of that admonition the other day when I saw an article about a friend of ours:

I first met this girl over thirty years ago at East Ridge High School while shooting senior portraits for Olan Mills. Because of camera problems earlier that morning I was running behind schedule as she sat on the metal posing stool ready to begin our session, her back was turned to me as her friends in the line behind her were laughing and joking with her about the awkward black drapes that all the girls were required to wear for senior portraits. From behind my camera I asked her turn toward me so we could get started, but she ignored me; typical, I thought she was pretty, popular and stuck up, I had seen her type many times and looking at her name on the card I said sharply, “Marty, you need to turn toward me so we can get started”. I was loosing my patience as the snobby senior ignored me again as she continued cutting up with her friends.

Although just barely out of my teens myself, I knew I had get control of these “kids” so I grabbed her shoulders and turned her so she was facing me, explaining slowly in by deepest manly voice “I’m sorry but, if you don’t want to have your picture made today then you are free to leave”. That move really startled her and now she looked shocked, and it seemed as if I had made my point. But then she mocked me, trying to imitate my deep voice, she said haltingly, “IIII’mmmmm Soooorrrry, IIII diiid nooot knooow yooou weeaaar reeeaaady!” Then, this smart aleck girl just sat there smiling at me like nothing had happened.

That was the last straw, I glanced at her card just before handing it back to her, “Here Marty, the girl at the desk will refund your money, you can come back on re-take day”. I turned around to the table behind me and picked up the next card while continuing my rant, ” I’ve got a lot of people behind you who came here today to have their senior picture made, and…”.

When I looked up, I was face to face with Marty, too close in fact. She had now gotten off of the posing stool and had come to my side of the camera, staring at my mouth awkwardly. I don’t mind telling you that I was slightly intimidated and so I called for the teacher. Just then, one of her friends in line behind her looked at me and yelled, “Hey man, she’s deaf, you have to look at her when you talk so she can read your lips!”

Oops, now I felt like an idiot! I mouthed an apology to her and she shook her head waving it off, then she responded in that deep halting voice, “Dooon’t woorry aboouut iiiit, I’mm fiiine, iiit haaappens aaaall thhee tiiime”.

Marty’s friends continued to tell me things about her while she sat for her senior portraits and my opinion of her continued to be changed 180 degrees in 15 minutes as her friends (quite literally talking behind her back) explained that Marty was the prettiest, most talented and sweetest girl in the school, full of optimism and everyone there loved her.

That afternoon I told Libby about the girl who had unwittingly taught me a lesson about making uneducated judgments of others. Libby and I would see Marty and her husband at different events around Chattanooga over the next 30 plus years. Over time, I have shot literally thousands of senior photographs but I remembered that particular incident so well because of the lesson I was taught by the girl named Marty Browning who went on to become Miss Chattanooga, Miss Tennessee and eventually that “smart aleck” girl was named Miss Congeniality in the Miss America pageant.

Which brings me back to the reason for this post; Marty Browning Dunagan is now battling breast cancer and I contacted her recently via social media to tell her that I would be praying for her, her family and her students at Marty’s Center. We briefly discussed Libby’s illness and I gave her directions to Libby’s Caring Bridge website, but it reminded me that it is easy to become so focused on your own problems that you miss the ongoing hurt in this world and how that, sometimes, we can impact others for good without even knowing it.

You can read more about Marty Browning Dunagan in this article: David Carroll: Marty Browning Dunagan Is Much More Than A Beauty Queen

Here is a video of Marty being given a local award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsumj0sD1is

Our Honeymoon, A Month of Sundays

On February 6, 2015August 2, 2019 By Barry GilleyIn Chapter 113 Comments

During the summer of 1978, a full 12 months before Libby and I were to be married, I started planning for our honeymoon. Libby and her family had spent a lot of time to make our wedding extraordinary and I wanted make our honeymoon a unique experience, something neither of us would ever forget, so as a part of that preparation I convinced Libby to take a scuba diving certification class with me at the local YMCA. It was during that same time that I began researching the best scuba diving sites and eventually settled on John Pennenkamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, Florida. Writing to the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, I received dozens of brochures about lodging in the area and I finally settled on a quaint little Mom and Pop motel advertised as being within walking distance of the docks (of course I found out later that the island was so small everything was within walking distance).

After consulting my trusty Rand McNally Road Map I realized that 12 hours of driving was not the best way to start a leisurely honeymoon, so I needed to break up the drive and find a place to stay. I called the Burns family (close family friends in central Florida) and asked about renting their cabin in New Smyrna Beach for a couple of nights, Dot Burns told me that she had been meaning to call when she heard about our engagement and she offered to let us stay in their cabin for a week as her wedding gift to us and, if we had the time, we could rent the cabin for a $100 and stay an additional week when we finished diving in the Keys. I quickly accepted her generous offer and I changed our reservations in Key Largo to accommodate our new schedule.

Because it was summer, the one commodity that we had in abundance was time. Libby’s classes and my job were both on summer break, so we had plenty of time, money however, was a another matter. In the fall Libby would be starting her junior year at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in pursuit of her teaching degree, leaving Mercer University and it’s generous academic scholarship behind, so besides car loans, a mortgage, utilities, taxes and insurance we added tuition to the debit side of my modest $11,000 salary at Olan Mills. Looking back now, I should have been nervous about our finances but I was in love with this little girl:

Our friend’s New Smyrna Beach cabin came compete with beach chairs, skim boards, floats and surfboards, in addition they had generously stocked the refrigerator with food and homemade deserts, so we spent a lot of time on the beach lying in the sun, surfing, walking, floating, eating and just relaxing. It was a great time for us both to slow down after the stress of the wedding and with no schedule agenda, the timing could not have been better.

I had prepaid the motel and cabin bill several months before we left and we had budgeted $500 for the rest of our honeymoon expenses such as gas, food, diving, sightseeing and any other expenses. Libby was always the more detail oriented person in our relationship, so it just made sense that she would be in charge of the budget and she enjoyed carefully recording every expense in a daily planner. The first chink in the armor of our budget happened in the Everglades when our car battery went dead and we had to buy a set of jumper cables for $24 at a convenience store, putting a strain on our already tight budget. Determined not to have credit card debt, we decided to eat out less and buy some bread and cold cuts instead. As I type these words, I realize how ridiculous a $24 overrun sounds now, but at the time it was a strain on our budget and in turn on our young relationship because it meant that we may have to go home early.

At the end of our first week in New Smyrna Beach we drove south to Key Largo and began our week of scuba diving. Libby and I made two to four dives a day and depending on the amount of energy exerted and depth of each dive, our compressed air tanks would last just under one hour (longer if you held your breath, which Libby did often when she got nervous or excited) We experienced coral reefs, amazing fish species and so many shipwrecks that a monument called Christ of the Abyss was erected in memory of the sailors who lost their lives.

Being in the open ocean 50 feet below the surface, Libby was uncomfortable during the first few dives, but she soon became more accustomed to her surroundings and eventually even wrote a note to me on her slate writing tablet telling me to take a picture of her and she would point to the scenery. She may look calm in the picture below but as soon as I snapped the image with my underwater camera she immediately began turning her head back and forth holding her breath and looking for Jaws.

It didn’t help to ease Libby’s fears when, on our very next dive, Libby saw a school of barracuda, some of them 6 feet long. Remembering the warnings that our dive master had given during our training classes, she knew that barracuda were attracted to shiny objects and have been known to mistakenly bite off the fingers of divers in an attempt to get their bright shiny rings, Libby tried warning me about the intruders by pointing toward them with her head using an awkward jerking motion pushing her head in the direction of the barracuda. She was afraid to point with her finger, in fact she tried covering her rings with her other hand, afraid that the barracuda would take her engagement ring, wedding band and the finger within. Eventually the barracuda lost interest in us and went on their way, but now Libby had several more reasons to keep her head on a swivel while in the open ocean.

Following our week of diving in the Florida Keys we returned for another week to New Smyrna Beach to begin our final week in the cabin. Libby found out during our first week on the beach that she absolutely loved playing skee ball in the arcade across from our cabin and on the way back to the beach Libby confessed, “I think I’m addicted to skee ball, I spent way too much money the last time we were here”. I laughed and said, “That’s silly, how could anybody be addicted to skee ball, besides, at 10 cents per game, how much money could you possibly have spent?” Libby dropped her head sheepishly looking out of the corner of eyes she quietly said. “Over thirty dollars the first time we were here”.

Some intense discussion followed (OK, it was a fight) in which we discussed our budget, jumper cables, mortgage and tuition. Again, the amount of money was petty by today’s standards but at the time we were, once again, back to bologna sandwiches. As we crossed over the inter coastal waterway on our way back to New Smyrna Beach we had less than $150 to spend, so we mutually decided that one dollar per day should be enough to satisfy Libby’s skee ball compulsions and still leave enough gas money for us to get home even if we could sell the giant panda that she “won” with her skee ball tickets.

Libby and I enjoyed the third week of our honeymoon back on the beach and during that time we were invited to spend another week back at the our friends home in central part of Florida, we told them our money predicament and they said it wouldn’t cost us anything since they had a spare bedroom and we could eat with them.

Our fourth week in Florida was spent relaxing with great friends who took us around to local sites, fed us, put us up in their home and let us use their three wheelers to explore the local fields and swamps.

Soon after celebrating July 4th with our friends in Florida we decided to take I-75 North back to our little house in Flintstone, GA. After more than a month in Florida and only minor disagreements about money and skee ball, we were about to learn what people meant by the term, “The honeymoon is over”.

The Wedding

On January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Chapter 105 Comments

It was the summer of 1979 and my new mustard yellow Sony Walkman wasn’t much larger than the Doobie Brothers cassette tape it played. Three Mile Island was a hot topic in the newspapers, an upstart cable network company called The Entertainment and Sports Network was about to start broadcasting sports 24 hours a day, Ford Pintos seemed to be blowing up everywhere, and every red-blooded American boy had a Farrah Fawcett poster in his room (until they got married and their wife made them get rid of it). But, if not for Google Search, I would not have been able to recall any of those memorable events that summer because they were all background clutter compared to our wedding in June of 1979. OK, if am being honest here, I will admit that I was able to remember that poster.

Libby was the first of the Willis girls to get married and this wedding was going to be a big deal, but at that time, I had no idea what it meant to Libby or the others who would help with the planning and to the many who would witness the ceremony that day. I was clueless about the amount of preparation involved leading up to the wedding day and only later did I realize what it meant to Libby to have her mom and sisters work so closely with her on those preparations. I don’t think I am the least bit out of line when I say to you that no matter how stressful the time was before the ceremony and no matter how tired she must have been when the wedding day finally arrived, Libby was stunningly gorgeous on her wedding day and by far the most beautiful bride ever (hey, it is my blog, after all ).

Libby’s family of five sisters viewed weddings completely different than did my family with it’s four boys, and like my brothers (and most other guys I knew) I did everything I could to avoid weddings, mainly because they could ruin a good day of hiking or fishing since they normally happened right in the middle of an otherwise, perfectly good Saturday, not to mention that you would have to stop what you were doing, take a shower and get dressed up right in the middle of the day. It was hard for my male brain to understand why people planned weddings during the day, it seemed to me that if you planned a wedding for either 8:00 in the morning or 9:00 in the evening then it would allow all of your potential guest the time to enjoy their Saturday and yet, still attend the wedding.

My job during the weekend of the wedding was to make sure I was at the rehearsal on Friday night before the wedding and then, on Saturday, get my tux, my car and me, to the wedding on time. Now, I certainly wouldn’t want to leave the reader with the impression that all I did was show up, because there was a whole lot more to my part in this wedding than that; I had to say “yes ma’am” often during the rehearsal when I was told what to do by Libby, her mom, her sisters or any other female with the authority to do so, which, in effect, was every female over the age of twelve. In addition to saying “yes mam” at the rehearsal, ,I had to say “I do” and “I will” at several different times the next day during the ceremony itself, no easy task since the two phrases were not interchangeable (something I learned the hard way during rehearsal). So the groom (me in this case) had to listen intently to the preacher’s questions and be prepared to give the appropriate response at the appropriate time during the ceremony.

Libby and I had built our friendship on planning events together throughout high school but I learned that I was a lost ball in high weeds when it came to wedding planning, so very quickly I took my place in the matrimonial pecking order. After all, this was Libby’s day and I came to realize that everyone came to see her, not me.

Now, if Libby were looking over my shoulder as I typed this, which she often did, she would say something like, “Now Barry you shouldn’t write that, the wedding was not about me, it was about the vows we made before God in front of our friends and family”, but lets face facts here, this was Libby’s day.

On Saturday June 9th 1979, right in the middle of an otherwise perfectly good Saturday, Libby and I were married in front of several hundred people packed into the pews of Flintstone Baptist Church . Among those witnesses in attendance were friends and family from both the Willis and Gilley families, our respective churches, Flintstone Baptist Church and Chattanooga Valley Church of the Nazarene, Olan Mills Studios, Red Food Store, Chattanooga Valley High School and Mercer University. Libby had so many friends and family in the wedding party that I told her if the number of bridesmaids grew any more I would be forced to go out and make new friends in order to have an equal number of guys on my side of the church just to balance out the number of girls in the bride’s entourage. There was, however, one obvious omission from Libby’s bridesmaids lineup, Helen Buckner (soon to be Helen Hawkins) was not among the ladies in blue (see A First Date for that explanation).

There was a tremendous amount of preparation that went on during the months, weeks and days before the wedding and I was, of course, oblivious to most of it. With a very limited budget to decorate, plan for and accommodate the 400 or so guests, the Willis family and their friends either made or borrowed nearly everything for the wedding to decorate the church in what had to be the social event of 1979 in Flintstone, GA.

Libby was calm, confident and radiant in her long flowing white lace dress as her dad prepared to walk his girl down the center isle of the church. For the moment, I too was calm and confident as I stood in a small room behind the organ waiting to enter the church, but then, my pastor mentioned to me that he saw a funny thing happen to a groom once during a wedding when someone painted the words “Help Me” on the bottom of his shoes to be seen by everyone as he knelt for the prayer during the ceremony. I nervously laughed about the poor guy’s misfortune, but then, out of curiosity, I looked at the bottom of my black shoes and saw the words, “Help Me”. Suddenly, the musicians began playing the song which was my queue to make my entrance but I was sitting on the steps to the choir loft nervously pulling the white athletic tape off of the bottom of my rented shoes. I was late walking in (so I already messed up on one of the things I was supposed to do) and my once calm mind was reeling with thoughts of, “I wonder what else they did…” I eyed my groomsmen as I walked by to see which one was responsible, only to conclude that they all looked guilty. Libby told me later that my hands were shaking as I held hers during the vows, but I said everything I was supposed to say when I was supposed to say it.

Although my role was limited during the wedding preparation I distinctly remember a conversation Libby and I had about a current trend in weddings to change a lot of the traditional vows, modifying or even eliminating parts that many viewed as “too restrictive” or “rigid”. Libby and I both wanted the traditional language in the vows and ironically, during our discussion of those vows she laughed and said, “Barry, you had better be sure about this ” til death do us part” thing because I plan on living a very a long time”.

I only had a couple of things to do during the wedding, one of which I messed up, but for more than a year I had been planning a month long honeymoon, promising Libby that it would be unlike any other, and I planned to keep that promise.

The Date That Nearly Cost Me…

On January 18, 2015January 18, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Chapter 82 Comments

During the spring of 1978 I purchased a well-used 1973 Toyota Landcruiser so I could join my friends when they went off-roading. Although it was not much to look at, the old green and white cruiser was a lot of fun drive, especially in the summer when you could take the top off. Later that summer that old cruiser would be the key component in one of our most memorable dates ever.

Libby and I went to a lot of movies early in our relationship, mainly because it was the expected thing to do on a date, but even though I didn’t have a whole lot of experience in this dating game it seemed like it would be much more fun to do active things when we went out rather than sit next to one another for a couple of hours and eat popcorn. I couldn’t help but believe that an afternoon of four wheeling would surely make for a memorable date, which brings me to our mud-slinging, rock crawling, red neck afternoon.

It was a Sunday and I had driven my old Landcruiser to church in preparation for our adventure. Several days before, I had talked to Libby’s dad about taking her on this date because I had planned several things that would require his permission. The first potential issue that required permission was that I would be taking Libby away on a Sunday afternoon, breaking a long standing tradition, if not a rule; second, I was taking her away from Sunday dinner (both a rule and a long standing tradition). After some discussion and a stern warning to have Libby home by 6:00 PM for Training Union, the Rev. Jimmie Willis gave me his permission to take his daughter on this unusual date.

On the way to church the morning of our outing, I remember thinking that I had come up with the ultimate date, one that Libby would never forget (and, as it turned out, I was right). I wanted to surprise Libby so I didn’t tell her about my plans until church was over when I asked her to change into her jeans, telling her only that we were going on a different kind of date. Libby was a lot of things, but adventurous was not among them, in addition she had trouble understanding why someone in their right mind would buy a vehicle specifically to take it in the mud, so this would be a first for her.

We left Libby’s house on that Sunday just past noon and and headed south toward Lafayette to begin our date. Leaving the paved road, we turned onto a dirt road and entered the Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Preserve, then we took a treacherous switchback jeep trail to the top of Pigeon mountain where I surprised Libby with a “gourmet” lunch on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. I arranged a blanket on top of the rock and unpacked the picnic basket which had ham, Velveeta cheese, bread, Golden Flake potato chips and Welch’s Sparkling Grape Juice (obviously, I had pulled out all of the stops). As we finished our grape juice I told Libby that we should leave, explaining to her the conditions that her dad had put on our Sunday afternoon date.

The road over the top of Pigeon Mountain during the 70’s was very rough, often times requiring a jack to lift the vehicle over some of the larger boulders covering the road, along the way we would straddle large ravines and plow through lots of mud, all adding to the fun and the challenge. As we continued our journey across the top of the mountain I was busy explaining to Libby Willis how, when driving on some of these rough trails, the driver needs to stay alert to keep from hitting the oil pan on boulders, pick the best line through mud, and all while keeping your momentum so you don’t get stuck.

With the worst of the hazards behind us, Libby decided she was ready to try her hand at driving, so I decided to swap sides with her and let her in on some of the fun. I said to her, “There may be some mud and a few small boulders the rest of the way, so go slow over the rocks, avoid the mud when you can, but whatever you do, don’t stop, just keep going and you should be fine” Libby drove like a champ even though it was straight shift transmission, had no power steering and she had never been off-road.

We topped a rocky hill and headed down onto the flatter portion of the trail where Libby would see the first muddy section. Since we were getting close to civilization, I began trying to find some music on the AM radio to accompany our adventure. Suddenly the Landcruiser veered off of the trail and came to a halt, when I looked up from the radio we were buried in a swamp. I asked Libby what happened and with a sheepish grim, she pointed to a mud hole in the road and she told me that she didn’t want to hit that mud hole, so she dodged it.

I couldn’t afford one of those large $2000 bumper mounted electrical winches that would have gotten us out in 15 minutes, instead I had a ratcheting come-along (mail ordered from J.C. Whitney for $19) which, with a lot of cranking,could move the 3600 lb Landcruiser about 3 feet every hour. Using a long cable that I kept wrapped around my front bumper, I strapped to the closest tree, hooked the other end of the cable to the bumper and began pulling. And pulling. And pulling.

In hindsight, it is unclear if we left from our picnic spot in time to complete the trail ride and make it back before church, but now, at the exact same time that church was starting at Flintstone Baptist, we were sitting axle deep in a swamp needing to cross 15 feet of mud, 4 miles of mountain trail and 25 miles of paved road just to get home.

Libby was very upset about her decision to avoid a 6 inch deep mud hole in favor of a 3 feet deep swamp but I told her that there was no damage done and eventually we would get out. We did get out after several more exhausting hours of pulling on that come-along and resetting the cable. We stopped at the first house we came to after getting out of the woods and asked to borrow their phone to let everyone know what had happened and then we finally made it home just after midnight.

I don’t remember all of the details of the encounter with Libby’s dad that night, only that he was gracious in his response and my fear of what might happen was far worse than the reality of what actually did happen. It was the first and last time we ever broke curfew, but of course it was a whooper.

On my way home that night after an exhausting day I decided it would be prudent to wait a few months before asking Libby’s dad the next big question for which I would need his permission.

Three Weeks of Dates

On January 8, 2015January 9, 2015 By Barry GilleyIn Chapter 75 Comments

When I was young there was an ice cream shop on McFarland Avenue in Rossville, GA called the Dream Cream which was an occasional treat for our family if we went out for Sunday dinner after church. One particular Sunday the decision was made that we were going to make an ice cream stop and I determined before pulling into the parking lot that I was old enough for a large chocolate milk shake of my own and I shouldn’t be required to share it with any of my brothers. A discussion followed and my mother soon became frustrated with my stubbornness and decided to teach me a lesson, telling me that if she bought me a large milk shake, I would be required to drink every bit of it or I would get a spanking for wasting food. Confident that I would easily be able to handle the Dream Cream Super Shake challenge without so much as a belch, I called her bluff. I’ll spare the reader from describing the dairy induced details, but for the record, lets just say I learned a lesson on that day that I (nor anyone else in that car) will ever forget.

I had taken Libby back to Macon after a weekend at home and then surprised her (and myself) when I found out that I would be going back to Macon to work at a high school less than 2 miles from Mercer University. My 20-year-old male brain had already begun to plan the agenda for the three weeks. I would leave my hotel early enough each morning to go to breakfast with Libby, then I would go by for a sandwich most days during my lunch break and most assuredly, spend every evening together, beginning as soon as I got off of work and lasting late into the night, every night. In the immortal words of Jacopo from the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo, “…How is this a bad plan?”

The first week of dates had been everything I had imagined, we were together every possible minute, capped off with a romantic evening described in my previous blog entitled The Dance. But as the second week of the trilogy began, reality set in as we reluctantly decided that we needed to plan around my work schedule, Libby’s homework, tests, papers, and all of the things we had put off during out first week of non-stop dates.

Call it naivety or more likely, immaturity on my part, but on my way back down to Macon at 5 AM on that first Monday morning, I envisioned twenty-one days of steak dinners and double feature movies every night followed by ice cream on the way home (no shakes). Instead, what I found in Libby was a dedicated student with a very aggressive class load involving some serious library time, especially after falling behind her first year when she missed so much school during her bout with mononucleosis. In addition, I had to work several evening shifts so it wasn’t the dating marathon I had planned, but the biggest obstacle to my fantasy of non stop dating was that I simply couldn’t afford it.

Much like that large chocolate shake that I wanted when I was young, the reality of the experience in real life did did not live up to expectations that I had in by brain. Don’t get me wrong here, I enjoyed the entire three-week stretch, it’s just that our relationship was changing (maturing?) and we were forced to make decisions and prioritize our time among our responsibilities. In the process we learned that we couldn’t dance under the stars all of the time, we had to complete our obligations and then make the most of the time that we had to ourselves – a trait practiced but never fully mastered – over the next 37 years as we constantly struggled to balance time spent with one another against work, obligations and later on, children.