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Bex Hall > Memoir in Objects > The Marine Corps ring

The Marine Corps ring

February 16, 2022

USMC ring

Camp Lejeune

34° 43’ 29.4996”N, 77° 20’ 39.4764”W

Mom joined the marines on her 18th birthday, finished boot camp at Parris Island, and stationed at Camp Lejeune, where she met Dad.

It was around this time, 59 years ago, a Saturday night in mid-February when Dad told Mom he was Catholic and he knew a certain method. She, being in love or in lust, (or maybe both), trusted him.

They married on March 25, 1963 in our hometown of St. Albans, WV, at the First Presbyterian Church, founded in 1868. The bride wore white. I was technically present at the ceremony, but I remember little.


Dad was overseas when I was born and the story goes Dad was on the phone and Grandmother pinched me so I’d make a noise for him to hear. As years passed, Dad insisted Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World” was playing when he first heard my voice. Dad swore I made his world wonderful just by being in it.

But he didn’t stick around to prove the claim. He was gone by the time Satchmo released the song in 1968.


Grandmother passed away 16 years ago and among her things, I found Mom’s USMC ring, a yellowed newspaper clip about the day she joined, and her service coat. I tried it on and it’s two sizes too small but the ring fit. I keep the clipping and ring in my jewelry box, her coat in the spare closet.

Mom says she has no use for these things. I really don’t either. But I keep them anyway.


Ring and service coat
18th birthday she’s a marine

Filed Under: Memoir in Objects Tagged With: the 100 day project 2022, the objects

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About Bex

 

Bex Hall

Her writing has appeared in various online and print publications, most recently in Kerning, a literary magazine, and in the Stories of Hope Collection in Transplant Living. Her artwork has appeared and sold through the Grayson Gallery. She blogs here about creative life and creates in Studio BE overlooking the Ohio River. Her work in progress is a memoir about the secret life of objects.

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