HI! I'm Joan and this is my husband, Joe. We live in Teaneck, New Jersey and this is our fifth Road Scholar trip. Hi!

I'm Mary and this is my twenty-third Road Scholar trip.

Wow, twenty-three Road Scholar trips. You must love traveling, Mary

I absolutely do, Joan. I took early retirement, but my husband is still working. So I often travel alone. Road Scholar trips are not a bargain, but there's the security of traveling to fascinating locations with a group of people who share your interests. I couldn't match the cost of a hotel, much less the cost of a hotel, meals and activities for this price.

Joe and I feel the same way, Mary. I'm a retired librarian, and Joe's is a retired accountant. We appreciate the intellectual stimulation and the new experiences. What did you do before you retired, Mary?

I was a Chemical Engineer, Joan.

Amazing! Not many women our age found careers in the sciences. In those bad old days, some science buildings didn't even have women's bathrooms. Some men believed women's brains couldn't cope with mathematics. But I'm not telling you anything you don't know already Mary, you are unique.

Uh-huh. But my father was not one of those men. He made it clear he would only pay for college if I studied Engineering. The irony was that I didn't to want to be an engineer!. I felt I could be a good artist, but that wasn't an option.

That must have been a challenge for you, Mary.

I have to admit it was, Joan. Before each semester, I would corner the professor and explain my plight. I always sat behind a big guy, so the prof wouldn't call on me. I did squeak through, but it was a tough slog.

You were pretty tough yourself, Mary. A real trail blazer.

Interestingly, I never thought of myself that way. I saw myself as a victim of my father's intolerance. I graduated and took an engineering job in Alaska. I only moved back to the lower 48 after my father died.

Mary, Can I ask if Alaska was a good place to find a husband? Just joking.

Well, Joan I moved there because I was still single after graduation. I heard that back in the 1800's there were 250 men to 100 women. Even in the 1960's, the odds were good; but, as women in Alaska say, "The odds were good, but the goods were odd". Certainly, there were men available. Mostly rugged frontier types willing to make a living in the great outdoors. Sadly, rugged outdoorsmen tended to live isolated, without indoor plumbing and other amenities. They'd buy a plane but fail to install indoor plumbing. The oil rig workers made good money but spent it fast. The jobs like mining and fishing tended to be dangerous, and those men wanted quick companionship. They were not bad men, just poor husband material.

But Mary, you wanted a soul mate, a man who appreciated your achievements.

Yes, Joan and after four years of hard work, I wasn't settling for less. I never lacked for a date, although most of these ended after the first drink. Men who faced hungry wolves seemed scared of a woman with an engineering degree. I went on 100 first dates in my first year. Woman to woman, you know what I'm saying.

You had a job, though. Didn't that help, Mary?

Ironically, that was the best part of Alaska. In my first year, I found a job in the Assay office in Anchorage. My boss' wife, Libby, had taught chemistry in High School, and knew what I'd been through. In addition to inviting me for Sunday dinner and letting me play with her kids, she tried to help me find a soul mate. She even fixed me up with a date with an undertaker.

An undertaker? Mary, really?

He had a great car, Joan, a steady business and a house with abundant bathrooms. Not to mention an interesting story, having come to Alaska after a cheating scandal in college. He claimed he took a Chemistry exam for a fraternity brother and got caught. I had several dates with him. A discreet phone call to his hometown dredged up a talkative local detective. Seems my undertaker impregnated his High School sweetheart, refused to marry her and forced her into a home for unwed mothers. He then went off to college where he partied his way through his first year, flunking out in his second semester. I simply had to tell Libby I didn't think we were a match.

She fixed me up with several more guys. This was, after all, Alaska and women were scarce. In fact, she introduced me to my husband. Libby's brother, an engineer, came to visit from Louisiana one summer. His fiancé had jilted him at the altar, leaving him under a magnolia tree with punch and cookies waiting in the garage for the wedding guests. I respected his pain and tried to be friendly. We seemed to like each other well enough, but both of us had been through break-ups. I drove him to the airport, and we agreed to write.

Next day, there was a letter from him. I wrote back the day after. Three hundred letters later, I stood under a magnolia tree in Louisiana and became his wife.

Louisiana must have been a change from Anchorage, Mary

To put it mildly, Joan. That's another story. Let's meet in the bar before dinner, and I'll tell you some more.

Later

Mary, you've ordered an entire bottle of wine. Do you intend to drink it all yourself?

No, Joan. You told me you would help me with it. If I'm going to recount why we left Louisiana in 1974, we'll both need it. What does the name David Duke mean to you?

I remember he was a racist, who ran for president, and mercifully lost. I know Playboy sent an African American reporter to interview him, and he came across like an ignorant lout. Was he as stupid as he sounded? Mary?

No, Joan he was a charismatic leader who got the Klan out of the cow pastures and into the hotel meeting rooms. He did graduate from LSU, where he wore a Nazi uniform. He founded the KKKK, a group within the Klan who claimed to abandon violence and use the ballot box instead. A very dangerous man, especially for a Yankee woman with an independent streak. My husband and father-in-law called him "white trash", but I noticed checks made out to the KKKK in my husband's checkbook. Louisiana was in the grip of the Ku Klux Klan. Governor John McKeithen made payments to them to "keep the peace".

My husband and I returned to his hometown of Destrehan, Louisiana in 1973. Just three years earlier, Louisiana had ratified the 19th amendment, granting women substantial rights. Until then, Louisiana supported the Napoleonic Code, which made the husband "head and master" and gave women only partial property rights. The 1974 Equal Property Act helped rectify some of the inequalities, but the concept of "head and master" lingered.

Destrehan was a sleepy Southern town. My husband's family were pleasant enough, but all they seemed to do was sit around drinking coffee. Sometimes, they would go outside and sit on their unscreened front porches. As their African American maid brought glass after glass of water, they swatted flies. They attended all-white churches, shopped at all-white stores, and let their African American servants raise their children. They ate lunch at each other's homes, played bridge, volunteered for committees and led easy lives. Destrehan Plantation was a tourist destination, lovingly restored by an army of volunteers. Nobody mentioned the slave revolts, or the ghosts.

I was too energetic for that life. I found a job teaching at Destrehan High School, where they were desperately short of science teachers. Nearly everyone in Louisiana with a science degree got a job with the oil companies, including my husband. As such, nobody was left to teach. My interview was brief. The principal told me, "I know your father-in-law. Don't teach evolution. You're hired." I taught Chemistry to 120 students, an hour at a time. It was demanding, but I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation. The school was technically integrated, but the black and white students kept apart.

David Duke came to our house on he evening of October 6, 1974. Coffee and cake were offered, as well as something stronger. "I appreciate your loyalty and your contributions. Your Yankee wife's teaching at that integrated High School, isn't she?" I hated the way he leered at me, and he even tried to pinch my bottom. My husband pretended not to notice. "Tomorrow might be a good day for her to have a cold and stay home safe and sound. Somebody needs to teach those uppity teens a lesson, and we don't need a martyr like those three in Philadelphia". I excused myself to go sit in the kitchen. Philadelphia? Not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but Philadelphia, Mississippi where Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were tortured and murdered by the Klan.

There was nobody I could turn to for help. My husband's entire family was terrified of the KKKK, and their power. Police and law enforcement were all staffed by Klan members. I waited until David Duke left and walked into our living room.

"Pack your things. We're leaving. I can't run the risk of losing you". My husband had climbed steel oil rigging and walked out on girders a hundred feet above the Gulf of Mexico. He was scared. One phone call to his father confirmed the danger. We threw everything we could carry into our two cars and drove North. We were in Huntsville when the story of Gary Tyler came over the news.

Gary Tyler isn't a household name, but he is a martyr to the Civil Rights movement. On October 7, 1974, he was part of a group of African American students bused into Destrehan High School. A white mob attacked the bus, and a white student was killed. Gary was accused and an all-white jury convicted him of the murder. He spent four decades in Angola, one of the worst maximum-security prisons in the nation. He was, of course, innocent.

We stopped in Huntsville to call my father-in-law. He confirmed that David Duke had come by and offered to buy our house at half the price we paid. We refused to sell. We had worked hard to make that home livable and would need the money to settle elsewhere. "Is your insurance paid up?", my father-in-law asked. "The house is flammable". We agreed to sell. My husband was heart-broken but resigned.

We stayed a week in Huntsville. My husband applied to work at the Space & Rocket Center, but we were still reeling from the loss of our home. A few lunches with African American scientists at Huntsville showed us the Klan remained strong. The federal facility was technically integrated, but Huntsville was still a segregated town. Calls to school friends let us know Delaware University and Dupont needed scientists with experience in the oil industry. We packed again and drove North.

After my father's death while I was still in Alaska, my mother moved into an apartment in the Brandywine Valley of Southeastern Pennsylvania. She liked the pretty scenery, and the apartment was affordable. DuPont was hiring. Both of us found jobs near her. My husband loved "better living through chemistry", with DuPont. The local private school needed a chemistry teacher. We had excellent recommendations from our former jobs, thanks to David Duke's influence.

By 1975, we were living in a tiny home in Chadd's Ford, happy together. The pittance from the sale of our former split-level in Destrehan barely covered the down payment on our little place. Still, we had a roof over our heads and two paychecks. Both of us continued to work at jobs we loved. Our children were born in Chadd's Ford and attended college on Du Pont Scholarships. Ironically, my daughter became an engineer, and my son works as a commercial artist. After our children graduated from college, my husband and I realized those Yankee winters were grinding us down.

We took a long vacation in the South. Louisiana was no longer the Klan-controlled area we remembered. Blacks were visible as law enforcement, merchants and even judges. The legislature was 70% white, but blacks were voting. There was even a chapter of NOW in many towns. My husband confessed his homesickness for the South. He missed the warm winters and his family. We drove through Louisiana and found our dream home in Baton Rouge. My husband's engineering skills earned him a tenured professorship, and we now live there. I came to grips with being the sole Democrat in a family of Republicans, and travel often.

Well, Mary that was one fascinating story. The next bottle of wine is on me, and we should drink it at dinner to soak up this bottle.

-