Libby Willis – Page 5 – Libbys Living Legacy

Libby and I would meet, date, marry and raise a family in the small community of Chattanooga Valley tucked into the mountains of Northwest Georgia. During the 60’s and 70’s most everyone in our valley knew one another or at least they knew one another’s families, often attending church and school together, or at the very least, catching up on things during the annual Chattanooga Valley Kiwanis Club Bar B Q, a summer tradition held in giant circus tents on the front lawn of the elementary school. Although not native to the area, Libby would call the Valley home for the rest of her life after her family moved here from LaGrange, GA when her dad, Jimmie Willis, accepted the call to pastor Flintstone Baptist Church in that summer of 1971.

Even though I was slow to pick up on Libby’s ulterior motives when she brought back that ratty old jersey after collecting dust in her closet for several years, I did eventually “get a clue” and I asked her out for our first date. Now, I had put a lot of thought into this and decided that the “cool” factor of driving my sporty blue ’72 Chevrolet Camaro was outweighed by the fact that it had bucket seats and a center console. I never really dated a lot in high school, it seems like I was always busy shooting pictures for the school annual, planning events and going out with a bunch of people (what our kids now call group dating). I did, however, know enough to realize that when going on a date with just one person it was generally expected that your date would eventually sit next to you in the seat. I wasn’t sure if Libby would decide to sit next to me on our first date or not, but at least in my mom’s ’74 Chrysler I could fold up the arm rests and make the front seat one very long bench seat, just in case she decided to slide over.

I had made reservations at a new restaurant on Brainerd Road called the Sailmaker where each table had a different movie or TV show theme and the wait staff dressed up in character. I left my parent’s house in plenty of time even after spending most of the day washing my mom’s car and vacuuming out the interior. Throughout high school I never really had a “girlfriend” but I did have several “girl” “friends”, but now, I had just asked Libby Willis out on a date and we didn’t have an upcoming Physics test to talk about, so it goes without saying that I was nervous and anxious about this date.

I arrived at Libby’s house a little early, fidgeting nervously as I watched Libby come down the stairs while her younger sisters, her mom, and I all looked on. Libby’s head dropped forward-looking down at the floor, genuinely embarrassed by all of the attention, but her sisters and her mom were all smiles, rotating their heads almost in unison back and forth, as if in a tennis match, looking at Libby and then back at me to gauge my reaction. I could tell by the wry smiles and glances between each of them that I had been the focus of the conversation just a few minutes earlier. But now, with the “presentation” completed and with her younger sisters holding their hands over their mouths to suppress giggles, we were finally headed out the door on our date.

Libby and I had been friends ever since her family first moved to Chattanooga Valley six years earlier, and during all of time we were able to talk about any number of current events, plan school functions, laugh and study together for hours at a time, but now that I was about to go out on a date with her, and I silently wondered what we would talk about during dinner. It had been less than 48 hours since Libby had shown up at my house using some flimsy excuse and my whole world was turned upside down, because now, things were different.

Looking back on it now, it’s interesting to me that when we started dating, friends from school would ask, “Hey, I heard you and Libby Willis are dating now, how’s that going?” I would answer, trying to explain the change that I felt as I was falling in love, “It’s going good, but things are different now”. The real irony is that I often used that statement during the time when our relationship was just getting started, and now 37 years later people will say to me, “I heard that Libby died, I am so sorry. How are you doing?” I normally respond, “I’m doing okay, but things are different now”. The term, “things are different now” became the bookends of our life together marking both, the beginning of our relationship when I was falling in love, and again now as our relationship has ended and I adjust to a life without her.

As we left the Flintstone Baptist Church parsonage on our date, Libby slid just a little closer to me in the seat about the time we passed the Ace Hardware (quite possibly because we were now out of sight of her sisters, who were all looking out the window). My worries about having nothing to talk about were short-lived as we stopped within a mile of her parent’s house because of a wreck in the “S” curve between the two bridges on Happy Valley Road. We sat discussing the option of turning around and going through Chattanooga toward Brainerd, when I looked up and noticed that I knew the person that had just wrecked. I turned to Libby and said, “That’s Helen Buckner, a friend of mine. I need to go see if she is okay.”

While Libby waited in the car, I went to see if I could help and as I walked toward the wreck I noticed Helen was very animated and understandably upset having just wrecked her 1973 white Dodge Challenger . As I walked toward the accident, Helen saw me coming and, recognizing a friendly face in the chaos, ran and put her arms around my neck and began to cry while trying to explain what had happened in between sobs and sniffles. I was trying to understand her muffled explanation while at the same time reconciling the things she was telling me with the things happening around me, but since I couldn’t see another car I was having trouble understanding how this wreck had happened. That’s about the time I saw the “victim” lying next to Helen’s car, a black and white, 1600 pound Holstein and according to Helen, “That heifer stepped right out in the road when I rounded the curve, and that’s when I hit her.” The damage to Helen’s Challenger was significant, but as it turned out, the cow got the worst end of the deal. As I was absorbing everything, Helen went on to tell me how that this was the second time she had wrecked a car by hitting a cow, which explains her apprehension in calling her dad to tell him she hit a cow and wrecked her car, again. Soon though, Helen’s dad arrived on the scene about the same time as the farmer who owned the cow (actually steaks and hamburger now). So with things getting back to normal and one lane of traffic open, I told Helen that I really needed to get back to my date and she thanked me again for stopping to help, hugging my neck once more before leaving.

Pleased at myself for my good Samaritan deed, I climbed back into the car to continue our date, but now Libby seemed cold and distant and I was clueless as to why (the first of many times). I thought if I used my reasoning skills I should be able to figure this out, so I asked, “Is there anything wrong?” Libby said, “No, nothing”.

My first instinct was to take her word for it and just drop the subject, but her body language was telling me that things had changed since I had left the car a few minutes earlier. Libby had moved to the other side of the car where she was looking out of the window, staring at nothing in particular and all conversation had stopped. As we drove toward our destination I was still wondering what had happened and against my better judgment I asked nervously, “I know you said nothing was wrong earlier, but it seems like you are upset, am I missing something? Did I do something wrong?.” That’s when she turned completely in her seat to face me, her head was tilted back and her arms were folded across her chest (I couldn’t help but think to myself at this point that the bucket seats may have been the better option).

“Who was that girl?” she finally asked. Now, at last, I was starting to understand the problem. I said haltingly, “Who…Oh you mean that girl….. Helen? She’s nobody……She means nothing to me… We’re just friends.” (Now, looking back, that was probably not the best way to phrase my response). Libby had leveled a look at me (repeated often over the next 37 years) which let me know I had made a mistake and I had better figure out what I had done, fix it and not ever do it again. The only problem was, I didn’t think I had done anything wrong, in fact, in my mind I was showing sympathy for someone in distress and Libby should have been able to see that I was compassionate and considerate, or at the very least, chivalrous.

That night was our first of many lessons in relationships and communication and it took us both a while figure it out our responses, because we would continue to misunderstand, apologize and forgive from that day on, never mastering those lessons completely. Today,with the advantage of hind site, I have often thought that if I knew on that first date, what I know now, I would have responded differently to Libby’s question,”Who was that girl?” I would have taken Libby Willis (Gilley) by the hand and walked with her over to Helen Buckner (Hawkins) and said, “Libby, I want to introduce you to Helen; she will be your best friend for life.”

I am getting away from the CaringBridge site. It served a wonderful purpose but this new site fits the need much better in this next stage of writing. You can sign up to be notified of any new posts and write responses on this site just as you did on the CaringBridge site.

Some have asked that I continue to write about Libby and our relationship and although it puzzles me as to why anyone enjoys reading about our life, I will write a few things, if, for no other reason than it gives an outlet for my thoughts.

How it all Started:

My memory of the start of Libby’s and my relationship is not real clear, after all it has been 37 years, but then, I’ve never been one to allow the facts (nor the lack thereof) to get in the way of a good story. With that preface, this is how I remember the events surrounding our high school graduation and the year following:

During our high school years, Libby Willis and I served on several committees together, talking often about different school events that we helped plan such things as proms, homecoming dances, student government etc. During this period of time we also talked extensively about physics homework and typically those discussions would begin with Libby telling me how that she had no clue how to set up a particular problem, much less solve it. Now, Libby was a straight “A” student for as long as I knew her, but her strength was in liberal arts not applied science, so one day she threatened to drop Physics before I talked her into staying by telling her that Physics would look good on her high school transcript when she began to apply to colleges. Libby gave in, telling me one afternoon, “I will stay in Physics but you will have to be my tutor because I have to make an A”. We would meet after school or talk on the phone (black rotary dial, not cell) for an hour or more almost everyday to discuss linear acceleration, torque, conservation of energy or any other number of problems and then, without fail, she would have a higher grade on the test than her tutor (teacher bias, I am sure). We never dated in high school, we were just close friends who could relax around each other and discuss everything from politics to religion, to relationships (including personal confidences). Could there be a relationship lesson there? In short, Libby made ~~her~~ our A in physics but in the spring of 1976, high school graduation changed our convenient friendship.

I remember several things from the night of our graduation from high school. I remember feeling a strange sense of pride knowing that the person delivering that inspiring valedictorian address had been my best friend during my high school years and quietly thinking to myself, “She is going to make some lucky guy a good wife”. I also remember Libby calling me earlier that week and asking if I would talk with my pastor, Rev. James Millard, about praying the benediction following her speech (yes, times have changed) I remember it being hot and humid in our un-air-conditioned gym and wondering why our teachers had insisted that we dress up with in our “Sunday clothes” when we each had to wear a cap and gown which covered everything. I remember how nervous Libby was about her Valedictorian speech and how many times she practiced in the days leading up to graduation night, and how many times I had heard that speech over the phone.

After graduating from Chattanooga Valley High School with the class of 1976 (Go Eagles) Libby and I had gone our separate ways with only minimal contact since walking across that stage. Libby had been awarded a full scholarship to Mercer University in Macon, GA, leaving soon to pursue a teaching degree, meanwhile, I was offered a job as a photographer for Olan Mills in their school division, so during the following year we rarely crossed paths.

I really need to set the stage here for this next encounter because I was a 19-year-old kid who thought he had everything he needed. I had a job that paid $150 a week (a considerable raise from the $3 per hour I earned hauling hay) I lived at home with my parents on the weekends but I left every Sunday afternoon and traveled all over the Southeast shooting pictures, arriving back home late Friday or Saturday, only to leave the next day on another trip. My job allowed almost two months off in the summer (no school, no school pictures) and I had friends in Florida with a beach house in New Smyrna. I had an expense card for gas, food and motel bills, a Toyota Land Cruiser for trail riding and a Camaro for dating. It was summer time and except for paying rent to my parents, I had almost no place to spend my money, I was on top of the world and I thought that things could not get much better. Then it happened.

It was a warm sunny Saturday afternoon during that summer of 1977, I was mowing the yard at my parents house when, out of nowhere, Libby showed up our driveway, she had just completed her freshman year in college and she was driving up in her ugly green Chevrolet Nova ( I’m sorry, it really was ugly). The fact that Libby Willis had just driven up, unannounced seemed very odd to me and I began thinking, “I wonder what’s wrong?” (It might be helpful for the reader to understand at this point in the story that I have never been real quick to recognize relational subtleties and signs). After an awkward silence, Libby said she had just gotten off of work from the Red Food Store, but even that seemed odd because if she had just gotten off work why didn’t she still have her uniform on? Instead of her red and white store uniform she was dressed in nice jeans and a new top that I had not seen before and her makeup looked really good for someone who had been working as a cashier at a grocery store for over 8 hours (once again see the note above about my lack of skill in this area of relationships). After several awkwardly silent moments, I asked what she was doing there (even at 19, I was a gifted conversationalist). Libby said that she wanted to bring back some old, long forgotten jersey that I had given to her during high school to keep her clothes clean as she painted some backdrops for a play (confession time here; the jersey had been given to me by another girl). I said something really intelligent like, “I don’t need that jersey, in fact I didn’t even remember you had it, and I hate that you drove all of the way down here to bring it back”. After I told Libby that I didn’t need the jersey I expected her to get in her car and go back home because I still thought that was the only reason she drove down to my parents house, but she stayed and after several more awkward moments,I finally asked if she would stay for supper ( after all she did look really nice) and to my utter amazement she said “yes”. That inauspicious start in the spring of 1977 was the beginning of a “more than just friends” relationship that would last for the next 37 years.

As fall came Libby left for Macon to start back to college and it felt like our relationship was still in its infancy because even though we had known each other for several years since we were both in Junior High school we knew one another as friends. I knew what she thought about politics and religion, but suddenly, that wasn’t enough. Living in today’s instant access world of cell phones, texting, email and Facebook it requires some effort to imagine, depending on your age, a time when long distance phone calls were an additional page on your phone bill (that could be conveniently handed to you by your parents monthly) and you had to actually go find a phone on which to talk. But now I was smitten and I wanted to communicate with Libby Willis, so with phone time severely limited I started writing to Libby several times a week, hoping she would take the hint and write back. It never happened, in fact I can count on one hand the number of letters that I received from Libby in the first ten years of our relationship. To her credit after receiving each letter Libby would call me and remind me very sheepishly that she was not a letter writer because she would much rather talk than write (that, obviously, would eventually change) but for all of our dating life and about the first ten years of our marriage I wrote letters to her all of the time sometimes once a day. Then later as I attended college I even took a composition class, writing a few poems for her. Our roles changed later in our marriage as she would, far too often, have to plead with me to write something for her.

Recently looking through some of Libby’s things I am finding most of those letters that she kept and it brings back so many memories. It also reminds me of why I began to write.

If you are interested enough to still be reading these reminiscing’s I’ll post some more later.

barry