Pretty incredible, isn’t it? Almost half our lifetimes together, and second marriages for both. Where on earth did all the time go, and may we please do it all over again?
Five years ago I wrote a short history of the previous 25 years. It’s worth your time if you’re curious at all, and that very post is a chapter in my Taos Soul book. This time, though, I want to recall the day we actually got married…
We’d been living together for several years. She was a classical pianist and college professor, and I was an idiot. We eternal boys are often impossible to resist, however, and when I finally said “Let’s do it!” (or other romantic words to that effect), she jumped right in. The moment of decision occurred on an Interstate highway in Illinois, I believe, as we were heading east after a Christmas visit to her Iowa homeland. Unless I’m very much mistaken, she was at the wheel of my green ’63 VW bus—the old one with the split windshield like a B-17—which we had driven halfway across America to score free loot (furniture and hats!) from her tiny English grandmother in Keota. This was probably the trip where she wore her vintage raccoon coat and singed it on the open flame propane heater I invented and had hanging from the dash. Those were the days, or maybe they weren’t.
On the way back, we were massacred in the dead of night by slush-heaving semis on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the middle of a blizzard and bailed out to find a motel. Somehow we got the last room at a place that adamantly did NOT take pets, forcing me to hold our poor dog’s mouth shut after we snuck her in! Good thing I did, though—there were people crying in the lobby who probably had to hole up at the police station or else head back out on the godforsaken highway in the snow.
At the time, we lived in the back of a real estate office in Chestertown, MD. We had three small rooms and a tiny kitchen, with an even tinier bathroom. When my wife first met me, by the way, I had a carrot in my refrigerator in that tiny little kitchen. One carrot, boys and girls. At any rate, this was practically “downtown.” The county courthouse was just a block and a half away, and that’s where we got married by a local justice of the peace in front of an audience of about a dozen friends. Afterwards most of us marched back across the street to drink champagne in our apartment. (LOTS of champagne, oh yeah!)
By this time the weather had changed, and it was starting to snow. One of our oldest friends, the wife of the man who owned the building, needed a ride back to their house in the country and offered to make us a spontaneous pasta & bacon wedding dinner, so off we went. This time in my ’62 Saab, almost drunk enough to drive in New Mexico, haha. (Little did we know…)
The snow was coming hard by the time we reached the 45° turn on the north end of our little town. I wasn’t going fast at all, but the road might as well have been slathered with lard, and the Saab decided to keep turning after I was finished—with oncoming traffic coming straight at us through the snow, the car spun gracefully and oh-so-slowly, completing a 360° circle and then miraculously straightening out in exactly the direction we wanted to go! No one yelled or screamed, either, being pickled to the gills and peaceful. It was the one of the damnedest things I’d ever done in an automobile, but everything was fine. We made it to the farm, warmed up beside a real colonial fireplace, and had a simple, loving meal that ranks with anything I’ve eaten since.
By this time it was after dark and probably still snowing. I’m sure we were offered lodging for the night, but naturally I brushed it off and got us home in one piece, no doubt creeping all the way.
The girl from Iowa is still here. I’m one lucky bastard, chilluns, and that’s the way it goes.
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Have you ever thought of selling your story to a film maker?
Yeah, but the part before the ending still needs work!
Congratulations on your 30th Anniversary John…Ours is in December of this year….and again, amazing to me how our lives often parallel….then AND now…..Wishing you both another 30 – at least….but in the HOME you both deserve!!
Thanks, Steve!
That’s a cute and mischievous little girl. I can see why you fell for the mature version and have had the good sense to stay the course with her. Reckon she sees something she likes as well.
My daughter always gets upset with me when I say this (thinks I’m being judgmental or something), but it’s just the plain truth: We weren’t meant to live alone. Most of us, anyhow. Nobody has invented a better way to do the human journey than with a mate to soldier along with. Life is hard enough without adding loneliness to the total of its discontents.
Amen to staying the course, although she should have thrown me out years ago, so I don’t know if that was up to me.
Loved your story-very touching! Thanks for sharing…..Happy Anniversary!
Cousin Karen! You’re very welcome, and thank you. We just got back from the Adobe Bar at the Taos Inn, where the musical performers tonight were friends of ours and dedicated a song to us. Very special.
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