Read Online If Loving You Is Wrong by Gregg Olsen - Free Book Online
Authors: Gregg Olsen
Tags: Education & Reference, True Crime, Biographies & Memoirs, Schools & Teaching, True Accounts, Education Theory, Classroom Management
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penis”—Carla Stuckle continued to put the blame for the affair on Mary Schmitz. Mary hadn't been giving her husband what he needed at home. Carla had a deep hatred for Mary Schmitz. They had carried on the affair for so long, for so many years, that the woman had to be an idiot or completely blind to have missed it. Where had she thought her husband was when she was in bed in the little house on Drayton Way?
Carla Larson, through her own observations and through what her mother told her, didn't get a sense that Mary Schmitz cared one way or another. She had seen Mr. and Mrs. Schmitz at gatherings in public and at their home in Corona del Mar.
“I never got the sense that Mary truly loved John. I saw them together a lot at political fund-raisers. Have you ever watched Hillary Clinton looking at Bill Clinton? That gaze. Mary never ever demonstrated that gaze. She was always looking elsewhere to see who was looking at her.”
Carla thought her mother was wrong to think that Mary didn't know about the affair. The woman wasn't stupid, just pragmatic.
“I think Mary knew. Maybe she didn't want to give up what she had and her position and social status? It was very important for her to be the wife of a senator,” she said later.
John Schmitz had a lot of friends, and most stood by him during the Stuckle affair in 1982. Some figured that he wasn't getting what he needed from Mary and it didn't surprise them that he went out looking for it elsewhere. What did raise a few eyebrows was his woman of choice. Most considered Carla Stuckle a step down from what he could have been sleeping with.
Carla Larson, bitter over her mother's abandonment, would find her already tenuous loyalty wearing thin. At times, she felt sorry for Schmitz.
“He was trapped. He was trapped from the first time they went to coffee after class. When she stuck around to have a conversation with him and he suggested they go somewhere to talk outside the classroom, he was trapped,” she said later.
Yet the young woman also found room to blame John a little, too. Several times she thought of confronting him and telling him that it takes two to make such a mess.
You were the idiot that didn't learn from the first mistake. You kept coming around. You didn't have to. You could have said, “This is enough, woman,” she thought.
The media had a field day with the two-timing politician. Camera crews staked out 10 Mission Bay Drive and didn't leave. John Schmitz never commented on the affair and his wife did little more than laugh it off as her husband's problem.
For those who knew them, and those who thought they knew John, there were broken hearts all over Orange County.
“I could just see what they were doing. They were all holding hands praying for God's deliverance from this plague on their house. And John's leading the sermon,” said Hank Springer, the liberal ying to Mary Schmitz's conservative yang on their TV show, Free for All. “I felt so sorry for Mary. She didn't deserve this. Look at the hell he brought down on his family.”
Hank Springer later saw great relevance in the scandal, almost a foreshadowing of what would happen to John Schmitz's oldest daughter a decade and a half later. It was in her genes. It was a lesson learned. Somewhere there was meaning for Mary Kay in what happened with her father and Carla Stuckle.
“They came from a family that whatever they did, didn't matter. It was okay. That God would find a way. They could be purified in this fervor they had, this selfrighteousness. The rules are not for them, not for him.”
Hank Springer couldn't recall seeing Mary Schmitz after the scandal. He doubted that she taped another Free for All. Eventually, they put the Spyglass Hill house on the market and they slipped out of town for Washington. It was the final chapter. Mary started a career selling real estate for psychic and broker Jeanne Dixon in Washington, D.C., and John moved into a trailer in a Tustin trailer park to
Carla Larson, through her own observations and through what her mother told her, didn't get a sense that Mary Schmitz cared one way or another. She had seen Mr. and Mrs. Schmitz at gatherings in public and at their home in Corona del Mar.
“I never got the sense that Mary truly loved John. I saw them together a lot at political fund-raisers. Have you ever watched Hillary Clinton looking at Bill Clinton? That gaze. Mary never ever demonstrated that gaze. She was always looking elsewhere to see who was looking at her.”
Carla thought her mother was wrong to think that Mary didn't know about the affair. The woman wasn't stupid, just pragmatic.
“I think Mary knew. Maybe she didn't want to give up what she had and her position and social status? It was very important for her to be the wife of a senator,” she said later.
John Schmitz had a lot of friends, and most stood by him during the Stuckle affair in 1982. Some figured that he wasn't getting what he needed from Mary and it didn't surprise them that he went out looking for it elsewhere. What did raise a few eyebrows was his woman of choice. Most considered Carla Stuckle a step down from what he could have been sleeping with.
Carla Larson, bitter over her mother's abandonment, would find her already tenuous loyalty wearing thin. At times, she felt sorry for Schmitz.
“He was trapped. He was trapped from the first time they went to coffee after class. When she stuck around to have a conversation with him and he suggested they go somewhere to talk outside the classroom, he was trapped,” she said later.
Yet the young woman also found room to blame John a little, too. Several times she thought of confronting him and telling him that it takes two to make such a mess.
You were the idiot that didn't learn from the first mistake. You kept coming around. You didn't have to. You could have said, “This is enough, woman,” she thought.
The media had a field day with the two-timing politician. Camera crews staked out 10 Mission Bay Drive and didn't leave. John Schmitz never commented on the affair and his wife did little more than laugh it off as her husband's problem.
For those who knew them, and those who thought they knew John, there were broken hearts all over Orange County.
“I could just see what they were doing. They were all holding hands praying for God's deliverance from this plague on their house. And John's leading the sermon,” said Hank Springer, the liberal ying to Mary Schmitz's conservative yang on their TV show, Free for All. “I felt so sorry for Mary. She didn't deserve this. Look at the hell he brought down on his family.”
Hank Springer later saw great relevance in the scandal, almost a foreshadowing of what would happen to John Schmitz's oldest daughter a decade and a half later. It was in her genes. It was a lesson learned. Somewhere there was meaning for Mary Kay in what happened with her father and Carla Stuckle.
“They came from a family that whatever they did, didn't matter. It was okay. That God would find a way. They could be purified in this fervor they had, this selfrighteousness. The rules are not for them, not for him.”
Hank Springer couldn't recall seeing Mary Schmitz after the scandal. He doubted that she taped another Free for All. Eventually, they put the Spyglass Hill house on the market and they slipped out of town for Washington. It was the final chapter. Mary started a career selling real estate for psychic and broker Jeanne Dixon in Washington, D.C., and John moved into a trailer in a Tustin trailer park to
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