Marriage
The world is no longer a romantic
place.
Some of
it’s people still are, however;
therein lies the promise.
- John Cage
(Ally McBeal)
The world is no longer a romantic
place.
Some of
it’s people still are, however;
therein lies the promise.
- John Cage
(Ally McBeal)
GETTING MARRIED was the best thing I ever did. I like being married. I love my wife, and I love being married to her.
Our marriage is kind of like a sturdy, wooden chair: its corners get weathered through the years. Each everyday collision wears down the corners and edges until finally, all rounded and smooth, we bump against each other easily.
Basically, it went like this. We went out a few times, we hung out together for a while, and then we kind of skipped ahead several years on the relationship timeline. Suddenly, we had found our partner, someone we’d be spending the rest of our lives with. People who knew us wondered what had happened to the “dating” and “courtship” stages of our lives. We just sorta skipped right over that part.
How We Met
I WAS WORKING as a volunteer teacher’s aide at the Parent Child Care Center, a community program to provide low cost child care in North Sarasota. Two full-time preschool teachers and I took care of 25 three year old kids. Jeannine was in my class. Angela was in the class next to mine with the other two year old kids.
We met because Jeannine would not take a nap. There was something pathological about her refusal to take naps. It was like her body chemistry simply would not permit daytime napping. We had a few other kids who were difficult to get to sleep during the daily nap period, but eventually they would usually succumb. Not Jeannine.
We tried everything, but eventually I proposed not bothering. Why fight such a certain thing? I started taking Jeannine and whatever other kids who couldn’t or wouldn’t fall asleep out onto the playground. Then we went for walks around the neighborhood. We weren’t just playing during these periods. We’d learn about counting, about colors, about what to do if you get lost, about how to cross a street safely.
Jeannine started going home talking about how Mr. McElroy did this and Mr. McElroy did that and how they learned about this or that from Mr. McElroy. Finally, Barbara wanted to meet this Mr. McElroy for herself and see just what was prompting Jeannine to come home talking about all these things she and the other kids had talked about or done with Mr. McElroy.
She came to the center while I was there one afternoon. Her daughter introduced her to me and the rest, as they say, is history.
Our First Date
The first time we went out somewhere together we weren’t on a date. The new Smurf movie was playing at the local theaters, and I wanted to take Jeannine and Angela to see it. She agreed, and I asked almost at the last moment if she’d like to come along. Like I said, it wasn’t a date. In the theater, we sat on opposite sides of the aisle with Jeannine and Angela between us.
We got together for our first declared date a couple days after Christmas 1983. We went to Disney World. Jeannine and Angela were with us, but this time they were accompanying us rather than the other way around.
The Wedding
Barbara and I were married shortly before noon on Friday, March 9, 1984, before Judge Rick DeFuria in his courtroom in the Sarasota County Courthouse. This wasn’t the plan. We kind of up and eloped. The date slid a bit as we made adjustments for other people’s schedules. The planned wedding kept getting larger and more costly and seemed to be out of control. So, one day, we just up and eloped to the courthouse with Barbara’s grandmother standing in as the witness.
The Church Reception
The folks at the church gave us a reception six weeks after our unscheduled elopement.
The Wedding Trip
We went to Disney World. Where else?
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