daughter is pregnant and you are responsible. Come tonight and be prepared to get married on Saturday, young man, do you understand?”
My response, as weird as it may sound now, was simply, “Well, okay.”
My family was stunned at the news that I was getting married in four days, to say the least. My dad sat at the table with his head in his hands. They thought they should go to Janice’s house with me.
“My God, son,” he said, “just when you are old enough to help out around here, you let this happen.”
“You’re the one,” I told him, “that taught me, ‘If you’re man enough to get yourself in trouble, then you need to be man enough to get yourself out.’ ”
So I went alone. Having no understanding of the seriousness of this moment, in some perverse way I was proud of myself.
Prior to Janice, when I was still the rule follower, I had always stopped before consummating the act. I understood how girls got pregnant and that guys had an obligation when they did. When my Janice got pregnant, I was fully prepared to take the step into married life. It never occurred to me to walk away from the responsibility. I was my mother’s son, after all. Not only was this Lucille Rogers’s personal moral code, it was mine, too. It was not for nothing that Kenneth Ray Rogers had taken the downtown bus to the First Baptist Church with his mom all those years.
The fact that I stood up to take responsibility at that moment did not mean my parents were happy about my getting married. They saw it from the perspective of losing another wage earner in the family. Our family hadn’t been out of the San Felipe projects that long. Both Lelan and Geraldine had quit high school to start working and help the family out, and my mom had hopes that with a high school degree, I could earn even more. She wanted me to be happy and pursue my dreams—something a teenage marriage threatened—but she was also determined to bring her family out of poverty, and I was part of the plan.
I saw the marriage in a different light. When I got married, I thought that having a wife just meant a guy could have sex anytime he happened to think about it, which in my case was all the time. I can still see the look on my dad’s face when I told him my all-sex/all-the-time theory of wedded bliss. He looked at me and shook his head.
“Just know this, son,” he said. “Sooner or later you’ll have to get out of bed.”
Janice and I were married on May 15, 1958, and our daughter, Carole, was born the following September. At the time, I honestly didn’t feel “trapped” or cheated out of anything. I thought the idea of being married was pretty cool. The Scholars were going strong, plus I was sitting in with groups around town and even playing in some recording sessions. We moved in with Janice’s parents for a year until I had a job that paid enough to rent an apartment. We bought furniture for the living room, dining room, and bedrooms. We were playing house.
Around the time Janice and I were married, I graduated from high school. I became the first person in my family to walk across the stage and pick up a high school diploma. My mom and dad and seven siblings were so proud that day. It seemed like a turning point for my family and its hope for a better future.
Now out of high school, I took any musical job I could find and also worked a series of day jobs, trying to earn enough for rent and diapers. It was important to me that we had our own place and furniture we could call our own. I even saved up enough to buy a brand-new “pea green” 1959 Chevrolet. I did everything I could to pay the bills and still keep my hand in the music business. I had a dream; I was married; I had a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter. I was happy.
I landed a day job selling office supplies, carbon paper, and typewriter ribbons. I was determined to make a success of both the sales job and my so-called music career, so I planned my schedule carefully. I
My response, as weird as it may sound now, was simply, “Well, okay.”
My family was stunned at the news that I was getting married in four days, to say the least. My dad sat at the table with his head in his hands. They thought they should go to Janice’s house with me.
“My God, son,” he said, “just when you are old enough to help out around here, you let this happen.”
“You’re the one,” I told him, “that taught me, ‘If you’re man enough to get yourself in trouble, then you need to be man enough to get yourself out.’ ”
So I went alone. Having no understanding of the seriousness of this moment, in some perverse way I was proud of myself.
Prior to Janice, when I was still the rule follower, I had always stopped before consummating the act. I understood how girls got pregnant and that guys had an obligation when they did. When my Janice got pregnant, I was fully prepared to take the step into married life. It never occurred to me to walk away from the responsibility. I was my mother’s son, after all. Not only was this Lucille Rogers’s personal moral code, it was mine, too. It was not for nothing that Kenneth Ray Rogers had taken the downtown bus to the First Baptist Church with his mom all those years.
The fact that I stood up to take responsibility at that moment did not mean my parents were happy about my getting married. They saw it from the perspective of losing another wage earner in the family. Our family hadn’t been out of the San Felipe projects that long. Both Lelan and Geraldine had quit high school to start working and help the family out, and my mom had hopes that with a high school degree, I could earn even more. She wanted me to be happy and pursue my dreams—something a teenage marriage threatened—but she was also determined to bring her family out of poverty, and I was part of the plan.
I saw the marriage in a different light. When I got married, I thought that having a wife just meant a guy could have sex anytime he happened to think about it, which in my case was all the time. I can still see the look on my dad’s face when I told him my all-sex/all-the-time theory of wedded bliss. He looked at me and shook his head.
“Just know this, son,” he said. “Sooner or later you’ll have to get out of bed.”
Janice and I were married on May 15, 1958, and our daughter, Carole, was born the following September. At the time, I honestly didn’t feel “trapped” or cheated out of anything. I thought the idea of being married was pretty cool. The Scholars were going strong, plus I was sitting in with groups around town and even playing in some recording sessions. We moved in with Janice’s parents for a year until I had a job that paid enough to rent an apartment. We bought furniture for the living room, dining room, and bedrooms. We were playing house.
Around the time Janice and I were married, I graduated from high school. I became the first person in my family to walk across the stage and pick up a high school diploma. My mom and dad and seven siblings were so proud that day. It seemed like a turning point for my family and its hope for a better future.
Now out of high school, I took any musical job I could find and also worked a series of day jobs, trying to earn enough for rent and diapers. It was important to me that we had our own place and furniture we could call our own. I even saved up enough to buy a brand-new “pea green” 1959 Chevrolet. I did everything I could to pay the bills and still keep my hand in the music business. I had a dream; I was married; I had a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter. I was happy.
I landed a day job selling office supplies, carbon paper, and typewriter ribbons. I was determined to make a success of both the sales job and my so-called music career, so I planned my schedule carefully. I
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