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www.southernsenior.info 9 A.P. added, “We look back and we both realized God had us in his sights. He had directed a lot of our moves. He got us here. There were a lot of strains during the time when I was gone on the ship while stationed at Newport. God was there with us.” Pat shared this on today’s families and the struggles some must be facing. “I understand that in today’s world, in most cases, both parents work. If there is anyway the mother can stay at home, I would hope they find a way to do it. I think chil- dren need a mother available when possible. I know that’s not easy, but I think it matters.” When A.P. had stepped away from our conversation mo- mentarily, I asked the question why was A.P. the one? Pat responded, “He was funny, honest, sincere. He was entertaining and he still is. Even at sixteen, he was more mature than others.” Ed and Mary Jayne Arthur (56 years) Ed and Mary Jayne Arthur met in Blytheville, Arkansas, in 1965. Ed was stationed there with the Air Force; Mary Jayne was a na- tive of Blytheville. Ed had served in intelligence as a radio inter- ceptor analyst in Italy, and when he came back to the states, he was sent to Blytheville. Mary Jayne and three other friends were in a car at Burger Broil as she recalled. “We pull up beside these two really good-looking guys and I asked my friends if they knew them. One of them said she had met them before. Well, they came over to our car, we talked and talked, and then a short time later, maybe a week or two, we started dating.” “My folks wanted to meet Ed before we started dating and that was kind of a rule back them. They wanted to sit and hear him talk for a while before I would have their per- mission to go out with him. Ed won them over. What they didn’t know was I had already been out with him a few times. I actually had skipped CYO on some of our dates,” Mary Jayne revealed with a smile. “Our first few dates, we would just ride around, get a burger, and talk. After a few months, Ed asked me if I wanted to go out to the river and watch the submarine races? Now, Blytheville is very close to the Mississippi River, but I had never heard about submarine races, but I agreed to go. I found out there were no submarines or races. Ed wanted to go parking,” Mary Jayne confessed. “Over a short period of time, I just realized how much I loved her. In fact, I love her more now than I did then,” Ed added. Her mother told Mary Jayne that she had thought Jayne Mansfield was the prettiest lady she had ever seen until her daughter was born, thus the spelling of her name as Mary ‘Jayne’. Mary Jayne added a quick comment about their courtship. “My momma was a good cook and Ed loved her cooking.” Ed agreed, “Man, she made the best rolls, pinto beans, and her fried chicken was the best!” After about six months of dating, they were married in June of 1966. Ed was due to get out of the service at the end of 1966 and was looking for a job back in West Vir- ginia, where he was from, but he had not heard anything back. With no definite options, Ed decided to re-enlist and as part of his re-enlistment, he would receive a Variable Re-enlistment Bonus which was worth $4,000.00, which was a lot of money at the time. Chris, their first son was born in their first year of marriage, and the comfort of hav- ing a new job was reassuring for the Arthur family. As part of his VRB, Ed was sent to Denver, CO, for train- ing, and eventually assigned to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, LA, where he worked as an Image Analyst for the Reconnaissance Technical Group, compiling maps. While in Shreveport, their second son, Keith was born. When Keith was nine months old, Ed was deployed to Vietnam and Mary Jayne took the boys and moved back to Blytheville and got an apartment near her folks. Even though he was in Vietnam and exposed to a lot of things happening like people getting killed due to the war, Ed said that he was at times more concerned about the boys with Mary Jayne back in Blytheville. “I was pretty safe. My boys though appeared to be in big trouble,” Ed stated. “On one particularly day, Mary Jayne had put the boys to bed for a nap and she went to the kitchen in her upstairs apartment. Well, shortly after, here comes Chris up the stairs crying. They had thrown the sheets, the pillows, all of the bedding out the window, and Keith pushed Chris out of the second floor window,” explained Ed with a big laugh. “On another occasion, Mary Jayne was taking her younger sister to school, and after she had dropped her off, Mary Jayne made a turn and the back door of our ’64