Chapter 9 
Chapter 9 “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
—MARK 10:6–9
LISA: One Friday night after Al and I had been back together in a serious way for about six months, he asked me to marry him. Of course, I said yes, and I was so excited. This was what I had always dreamed of, and I could hardly believe it was actually happening. By then, I had finished high school and was working, and Al was working and going to college. Though we intended to get married the following summer, the summer of 1985, we soon began to realize we did not want to wait that long, so we planned to move the date up to January 1985. Both of our birthdays would be during that month; we would be nineteen and twenty years old. Because we had a strong mutual attraction, we knew “our biology was threatening to overtake our theology,” as Al says, and we saw we could not even wait until January. We really did not want to engage in sex before marriage, but like all young couples who are deeply in love and trying to wait for their wedding night, the burden of the struggle to remain pure got to be too much for us. So on November 2, 1984, in the middle of a conversation about something else, Al said, “How about next Friday night?”
I said, “For what? Are you talking about going out on a date?”
He said, “No, for us to get married.”
My response was not particularly romantic, but of course, neither was Al’s proposal. I did get teary eyed, though, and simply said, “Yeah, I’m in. Let’s do it.”
That settled it. We had one week to plan a wedding for Friday, November 9, 1984.
“Our biology was threatening to overtake our theology,” and we saw we could not even wait until January.
Phil and Miss Kay were fully supportive of our getting married, and they had no objection to our doing it quickly. In fact, Phil encouraged Al to move fast once he made up his mind to marry me. But my parents were not excited at all. As much as Al’s behavior toward me had changed and as committed as he was to doing the right thing in every aspect of our relationship, he freely admits he did not handle my parents well when we decided to get married. Instead of talking to my father and asking for my hand in marriage, he basically said to me, “I guess you need to tell your parents.”
In the months since Al had come back into my life, my mom and dad had seen drastic improvements in my attitude and my behavior. Everything about me had stabilized: I had dropped my bad friends, I went to class instead of skipping school, and best of all, I was happy. They could tell Al was a good influence on me, but they were not ready to embrace him as my husband so quickly after we reconnected.
When they heard we were getting married the next week, they said they would not come to the wedding. I had always enjoyed such a good relationship with my dad that I was crushed that he would not give me away, but I was determined to move ahead with the ceremony.
As Friday drew near, my parents began to change their minds. My mother did contact one of my old boyfriends and ask him to ask me out on a date for the night of the wedding, without telling him my plans. When he called, I told him I was getting married that night! My mom also called the preacher we had asked to marry us and appealed to him to try to convince me to wait and to ask me questions such as, “Don’t you think you might regret rushing into this a few years from now?” Or, “Don’t you want a nice, big wedding?” No, Al and I told him, we did not.
Those were my mother’s last attempts to interfere. I understand now that she and my dad had legitimate concerns about me and they were justified in the many ways they questioned me about my future with Al. At the time, though, I just felt they were trying to keep me from marrying the man I loved. I was sad that they did not support us, but I was not going to let that stop me from going through with getting married. The day before the wedding, my mother bought me a dress I had tried on earlier—knowing I could never afford to buy it. When my parents gave me the dress, I asked them, “Are you coming or not?”
My dad said, “I’ll give you away.” That, and the fact that my sister, Barbara, agreed to be my maid of honor, pleased me very much.
AL: Like so much of our lives prior to our getting married, our wedding day had a bit of drama. All of us Robertsons left our place on the river to go to the preacher’s house, where the ceremony would be. We had a large white Ford LTD and a small Ford Fiesta at the time. Most of the family climbed in the LTD, since it was the roomier of the two vehicles. There was only one problem with that: The previous day, the LTD was almost out of gas, and Lisa noticed that. She asked my grandfather Pa where to get some gas for it. He told her to get “the red gas can” nearby and put fuel in the car. Lisa poured what she thought was gas into the car, but unfortunately it was kerosene. Pa was either mistaken about the contents of the can, or my family had more than one red gas can and Lisa picked up the wrong one.
A few miles down the road, that big car began to sputter and soon died a death due to kerosene. We left the car on the side of the road and stood beside it in our wedding clothes until the rest of the family drove by in the Fiesta. We ended up piled on top of each other in that tiny car. It was a five-seater at the most, but that day it carried nine people, and we all made it to the preacher’s house in time for the wedding.
Lisa poured what she thought was gas into the car, but unfortunately it was kerosene.
The preacher’s entire family contributed to our big event. He, of course, conducted the ceremony, in their living room in front of the fireplace. His young daughter, maybe ten or eleven years old, played the wedding march on the piano. She tried her very best but hit a lot of wrong notes. Every time she missed a key, one of her parents leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay,” which hopefully made her feel better. We all thought it was really funny and tried to keep from laughing out loud. After the ceremony, we had a small reception for our guests in the preacher’s dining room, with a cake his wife had made.
We certainly did not have a large wedding. The only members of the Robertson family who came were Miss Kay, Willie, Jase, Jep, Granny, Pa, and my cousin Jon Gimber. Phil was traveling and selling duck calls. From Lisa’s family, only her parents and Barbara and her husband were able to attend. Both of us had left behind many of our former friends who had been bad influences, so the only one of our friends who was there was the best man, W. E. Phillips, one of my duck-hunting buddies. In addition, about ten people from the church showed up. Not having a crowd did not bother us at all though. We had each other from that moment on for the rest of our lives, and that was all that mattered.
One of the special moments of that day took place when Lisa’s dad pulled me aside before the ceremony. He knew I had not handled anything about marrying her in a proper, respectful way, but he also knew I was determined to marry his daughter. He simply said to me, very gently, “Take care of my daughter.” I wish now I had initiated that kind of conversation with him and assured him I would be good to her before he came to me. But the fact that he spoke to me that way made a difference in our relationship for the rest of his life. Over the years, he and I developed a good rapport and mutual respect. He could have treated me badly that day, but he did not. I was not mature enough to do the right thing by going to talk to him, but he was mature enough to say the right things to me. I have always appreciated him for reaching out to me with such kindness.
One way Lisa’s parents expressed their displeasure over our getting married involved the car they had given her—a brand-new 1984 Monte Carlo. We could keep it, they told us, if we made the payments on it. This was our first grown-up moment, because there was no way we could afford the car note, so we had to tell them to keep it, knowing they would sell it. They did allow us to use it for our honeymoon before they sold it, so we left the wedding in a much better transportation situation than when we arrived!
Pa gave us about one hundred dollars for a trip after our wedding. That was a lot of money for him and Granny, but they were very generous people, and they wanted us to have a honeymoon. So that cold, rainy night, we headed for Shreveport, about ninety miles from our hometown, for the weekend. The hotel bill and gas took most of our money, so we did not have much left over for any kind of romantic meal together. I specifically remember going to Popeyes’ fried chicken restaurant for one of our first meals as husband and wife. It was not elegant, but it was all we could afford, and we were happy.
Lisa and I did not have money to buy or rent a place to live, so we asked Granny and Pa if we could live with them next to my parents’ house.
On our way back from Shreveport, we stopped to pick up our first real car, knowing we would have to return the Monte Carlo to Lisa’s parents. My parents helped us purchase a grayish-blue, used Ford LTD from someone who lived between Shreveport and West Monroe. Apparently, the Robertsons were an LTD family! It was not nearly as cool as Lisa’s car, but it was the best we could do on our limited income, and it served us well for several years.
Lisa and I did not have money to buy or rent a place to live, so before we married, we asked Granny and Pa if we could live in a room in their little house next to my parents. Their home did not have much space, but my big-hearted grandparents welcomed us with open arms.
Granny immediately took Lisa under her wing and began teaching her to cook, and we ate with her and Pa, my parents, and my brothers almost every evening. Lisa had a good job working at a bank, and I hunted ducks every day as part of my work for Duck Commander. In spite of everything we had been through in our dating relationship, when Lisa and I finally ended up together, our marriage felt like it was off to a good, happy start.