Charles Burns didn't go to the Snow Queen drive-in for the curbside service. He went for the walk -- Patricia Ann Brockwell's walk, that is.
"I liked the way she walked," he says.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “He had dark hair and those long dark sideburns. Elvis was real popular back then, in 1956 or 1957. He just kept ordering Cokes and smiling.”
He says: “I really liked the way she walked.”
On our wedding day I wore:
She says: “A baby powder-blue nylon dress and a white hat. Charles’ mom got us corsages and threw those gloves in my hand.”
He says: “A white suit I wore in the high school play, The Man on the Stairs.”
My advice for a lasting marriage:
She says: “For the man to let the woman have the last word. He always lets me have the last word. In fact, he’s so delighted when I get to it. There is lots of humor in our family.”
He says: “You have to love your partner, and you have to have a give and take situation. You have to be patient. Just being in love with each other is the main thing.”
Patricia was 15, just starting 10th grade, when her family moved from Monticello to Warren in 1956.
She got a job as a carhop, working after school and on weekends at the Snow Queen.
The drive-in was a popular hangout, but Patricia didn't know a lot of the people who hung out there. She was new in town and she kept to herself. Work, school and studying took up most of her time.
"The Warren boys liked the Monticello girls, but I didn't do much when I was growing up. While everybody was running around when we were in high school, I was staying at home," she says.
So, when Charles, who was 19, turned up there for a hamburger and a Coca-Cola with his friends, she didn't pay much attention.
Charles, though, was smitten.
He took to sitting in the lot, watching her walk from car to car.
"He was just sitting there in that Studebaker, whiling the hours away until I could get off work, night after night, and then he would take me home. We lived the whole amount of next door to the Snow Queen -- it wasn't very far," she says. "He would spend 10 minutes taking me home and then go home and get up to go to work early the next morning." Charles had to be at work at 7 a.m. at Bradley Lumber Co.
It was worth it to him to spend a couple of hours listening to the radio and watching the cars go by, even if he only got to spend a few moments with her at the end of it.
"I would walk her to the front door. I probably got a goodnight kiss and went home," he says.
They started seeing each other in the little bit of time she had away from work and school. They went to an occasional movie together but mostly they spent time at the other hangout in town -- the Corral.
Their courtship lasted about six months.
"I don't really remember a formal proposal," she says. "I think it was ... kind of understood. I was too young to get married in Arkansas. But you could get married in Mississippi at 15, so we went to Greenville and got married."
Charles' sister and brother-in-law had just bought a new 1957 two-tone Pontiac hardtop.
"It was a nice car, and they drove us down there," Charles says.
His mother had insisted that they marry in an Assembly of God church, so they found one and parked the car. They found the minister outside painting the church. The man agreed to marry them but he said that first he needed to get cleaned up.
Charles and Patricia and their witnesses went to the Mississippi River while they waited, and Charles and Patricia had their picture taken with a Polaroid camera on the dock. When they thought the minister had had time to take a bath and make it back, they went to get married.
The ceremony was on May 29, 1957, at the beginning of the summer after Patricia finished 10th grade.
"I borrowed $50 for us to get married on, and that included buying her dress," he says. "So, I handed the minister $5 or maybe $10, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was highly disappointed."
They went to a restaurant in Lake Village to eat before they drove back to Charles' mother's house, where they lived until just before school started.
"When school started we moved out, and we lived up over a barber shop on Main Street in Warren, across from the post office," she says. "We had an apartment where you could just look down and see people going up and down Main Street."
She finished high school with Charles signing the report cards she brought home. Following graduation, she got a job at the lumber mill, and about six months after that they moved to El Dorado, where they still live today.
Charles retired from Calion Lumber Mill in 2006. Patricia worked as a library clerk for the El Dorado School District for several years and now works part-time for Calhoun Arkansas Medical Supply.
They have two sons -- Chris Burns of El Dorado and Jeffrey Burns of Hendersonville, Tenn. They have four grandchildren.
Patricia and Charles square-danced together for several years, learned to play couples bridge and enjoy going to music festivals.
Charles might have thought his time waiting in the car for Patricia would end when she left the Snow Queen but that was only the beginning.
"I've spent half of my life waiting on her," he quips.
Patricia is grateful for his patience.
"Charles has always taken care of me," she says. "He has been a wonderful father to our two sons."
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High Profile on 07/23/2017