A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-One

I have been blessed with a great memory. I remember moments from my childhood so precisely, so vividly that I can almost experience them anew. I remember a thousand thousand thousand tiny events from my adolescence, from my years in school as a student and later as a teacher, from my marriage with Susan, from my myriad walks, from my conversations with friends... It would sometimes amaze Susan that I would remember details from our Cedartown years that she had totally forgotten until I told her about them--and then those moments once again became our memories and we would cherish them together.

Somehow, though, neither I nor Susan were ever able to remember exactly when, where, or how we decided to get married.

I do remember when I actually proposed to her, of course--but that's a different thing. By the time I proposed to Susan just before Thanksgiving in November of 1970, we had already decided that we were going to get married. But even in the fall of 1971, just a few months after our wedding, Susan and I weren't quite sure when we made that decision.

I can narrow the time down to late September or early October 1970. In our letters to one another from mid-September, Susan and I are both talking about dreaming of a future together (in my mind, those notes are accompanied by a soundtrack that includes "Never My Love," "Cherish," "Love Can Make You Happy," and "Wouldn't It Be Nice"). By mid-October, we're talking about how our parents and friends might react if and when they find out that we want to get married.

And yet, even with the likely date narrowed down to three-week period, neither of us could remember the fateful conversation when we decided that it was going to happen.

As I said, though, by mid-October, we were already talking about getting married soon after I graduated from high school. We didn't have a date in mind at that time, but we knew it would happen sometime between graduation from high school in early June 1971 and the time I started college in September of 1971. Since I had an academic scholarship, we didn't have to worry about the cost of tuition, so we were making plans to find our own place so that we could be together when we weren't working or attending class. We knew that I would work part-time while I went to college and Susan would work full-time at her job in the Arrow Shirts payroll department in Cedartown. Once I graduated, I would work full time while Susan would go back to school. (Yes, Susan and I were detailed in our planning.)

And in early November 1970, I did something that I would have dismissed as inconceivable a couple of years earlier: I sold my comic book collection.

That wasn't as easy a process in 1970 as it might be today. There were no local comic shops that could purchase a collection. There was no Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide filled with ads from shops eager to buy old comics.

But there was The Rocket's Blast/ComiCollector, an advertising fanzine that offered oodles of comics and fanzines for sale by fans and dealers across the country. And a few of those dealers also included a line informing readers that they also bought comics.

One of those dealers was Howard Rogofsky.

Howard Rogofsky had a reputation as being one of the priciest dealers who advertised in RBCC--but he had an incredible assortment of comics, he added more every month, and he was willing to buy collections. So I wrote him and included a list of the books in my collection, which included complete runs of all Marvel superhero titles from Fantastic Four #1 up, complete runs of all DC superhero series from the time of Brave & Bold #28 (the first appearance of Justice League) forward, and lots more.

These books had been my life up until November of 1970. My friendships had come about because of comics. I read and re-read my comics continually. I produced my own amateur comics. I produced a-apazines about comics and wrote for comics fanzines. I read novels written by comic book writers who also wrote science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mysteries. I even dreamed of becoming a professional comic book creator someday.

But for Susan, I had no qualms about selling all those comics to make my dream future possible.  I had assembled that collection once; I knew that, at some time in the future, I could assemble that collection again if I decided that I wanted to do so. But for now, it was time for me to exchange the collection.

I wanted to buy an engagement ring. And the only way I could get the money to buy the sort of ring with which I would propose to my current and forever love was to sell the books that had once been so important to me.

Howard Rogofsky's offer came less than two weeks from the time I shipped the collection to him (shipped by LTL truck line--it was too extensive and heavy to ship via the post office). While it was less than what I had dreamed it might be, it was still enough to buy the 3/4 carat diamond ring that Susan had fallen in love with when we saw it at Norwood-Griffin in Rome and to still have some money in savings to help us get through the early expenses of marriage and setting up our own home.

I took the offer, and Howard Rogofsky sent the check to my by air mail. From that day on, I had new-found respect for Mr. Rogofsky. He may have charged more for his books than some dealers, but he proved to me that he was a man of integrity.

And because of him, I was able to buy that ring and officially (and, I hope, romantically) propose to Susan on Friday night, November 21st, 1969 as we parked on the remote dirt road south of Cedartown that we begun referring to as "our place." She said yes. And by Saturday, November 22nd, 1969, we had decided on the date in 1971 for our marriage: June 15th, the same month and day when we first met back in 1968 after I had called a girl whose letter of comment appeared in Batman #199.

Susan would be twenty at that time; I would be seventeen (I wouldn't turn eighteen until August), so I would have to have my parents' permission to get married.

Susan and I told my parents about our plans the Friday after Thanksgiving. I was apprehensive, but I shouldn't have been. I think my parents had seen marriage in our future already. Mom and Dad asked a few questions, then Dad smiled and said, "Well, it looks like by this time next year we'll either have three people living here [referring to Mom, Dad, and my sister Kim] or five people living here." And with those words, Susan and I knew that Mom and Dad would back our decision--and that meant that the only potential obstacle in our getting married had been overcome.