We went out with our dear friends, Randy & Kim, to celebrate our anniversary last weekend and I'm just now able to sit up straight...I sprained my laughing muscles. It was such a good time. There's a richness to relationships that span decades and shared memories that bind us together as to make us inseparable. Pure joy.
During the course of the evening, we talked about our early married life and I shared a story about Ron's wedding ring...
After I graduated from college, I moved to Branson, or more specifically, Point Lookout, where my dad was president of School of the Ozarks (now upgraded to College of the Ozarks). I got a job waiting tables (my first - and last - attempt at that position) at a cute little restaurant in Branson called Harbor Lights. It was on Lake Taneycomo, so I'm not how the "Harbor" moniker applied, but it was a decent place. It was in town, not out on "the strip" - this was long before Branson flamed into the entertainment capital of the universe, so our customers were mainly locals. And the occasional couple in town to drop or pick up kids from one of the Kanakuk Kamps. These were the rich folks so we always vied for their tables.
But I digress.
Our wedding was three months away and I had to buy Ron's wedding ring. I found one I liked and probably put it on layaway. Every night after a shift I'd come home, pop into my parent's bedroom and dump my tips out of the pockets of my very stylish autumnal themed polyester smock onto their bed. Then I'd count the quarters and dimes and nickles...and sometimes the bit or two pieces of "folding" money I'd managed to earn. On a good night I'd make seven or eight bucks. I remember once getting a $10 tip and thinking I'd hit the big time. Ah, the age of innocence...
Finally, after three months of schlepping platters of food, ladling thick dressings on top of plain old iceberg lettuce, sneaking hush puppies when the cook wasn't looking and coming home smelling like a vat of grease, I'd made enough money to buy his ring...$125. It was the first really big purchase of my life and I felt very accomplished.
Imagine my horror when Ron came home from work one day empty fingered. School of the Ozarks has a mandatory work study program (in lieu of tuition) and Ron worked at the Transportation Department, punching coal. A dirty, hot job. He'd been washing his hands and, unbeknownst to him at the time, his ring slipped off and washed away.
I was devastated. I'd worked so hard. Listened to a third rate combo every weekend, doing bad covers of bad songs. I'd had to throw a glass of water on a customer on Fourth of July because someone thought it would be great (and safe) to light sparklers inside and her chiffon blouse caught on fire. I'd burned my fingers repeatedly splitting and smushing baked potatoes. I'd had to try and erase the image of the cook and another waitress practically "doing it" in the walk-in.
It had taken every bit of three months to earn that money...now we had bills to pay. We were never going to get enough money to buy another one. I was inconsolable.
Then...miracle of miracles...the next day Ron went to work and someone had been cleaning out the drain and found his ring. I'm sure tears were shed when he showed it to me.
It's been on his finger ever since. Well, almost ever. He had to take it off for his knee surgery earlier this year. As he handed it to me I took a good look at it. The fine row of ridges on the outside are long gone, rubbed away with wear. It's no longer perfectly round, but has a rather oval shape.
It still has a good, heavy feel to it. I smiled as I remembered the mountain of coins I amassed to buy it.
And then I slipped it on my third finger, next to my wedding rings, to keep it safe.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
love shack
For those of you expecting a post a la "Fifty Shades of Grey," I apologize. Although that woman has made a lot of money with her sordid accounts of sex and that single girl. And I do have a lot of time on my hands...perhaps a Baby Boomer version..."Fifty Shades of Gray Hair." What do you think? If I ever were to write such a tome, believe you me, it would be LOADS better than the original. And LOADS more realistic.
"Hey, you wanna?"
"Sure, why not? I've got ten minutes before I have to take the foil off the casserole."
There you have it...brief, steamy and food at the end.
Back to the love shack...Ron and I commemorated our 34th wedding anniversary this weekend. We commemorated it by me watching Ron sleep off his jet lag, having been in California all week, working 14 hour days. We watched a little telly, went to the Farmer's Market, Ron went fishing, we both took naps.
Ok, we laid low because we're hitting the town this coming weekend with our friends, Randy and Kim, who got married exactly one week after we did in 1981. No doubt it will be a night to remember (if I take notes.)
Ron and I often look at one another and say, "Did you ever think..." We usually both shake our heads and act all mystified that we've been able to endure three plus decades. I'm sure there were plenty of folks who were whispering at our wedding, "They'll be lucky to make it six months."
We met in an anthropology course at Westminster. An 8 a.m., TTH 90 minute class, called Fossil Man. It was easily the most boring and tedious class I've ever taken. And I was a sociology major for the first three years of my class, so I know boring.
After class, we'd walk down the hill together, chatting, flirting. Still, it took my roommate to set us up a year later before we actually went on a date. After that first night, it was a whirlwind romance. We got engaged in November, 1980 and got married the following August. I was the classic "went from my parent's house to the sorority house to my husband's house."
Neither one of us had had any independent living experience. It was a rude awakening. It took us several months before we realized that spending $25 every week at Wal-Mart was not smart financial planning. Nor did we have any reliable family planning.
Thirteen months, to the day, after our wedding we were parents. The first of many unexpected twists and turns in the Martinhouse saga. It's a miracle that Kate can walk and talk and has all of her limbs. We had no idea what we were doing.
Our first house was a trailer. The bedroom was so tiny that we had to take the door off because it wouldn't shut with our double bed in it. So we resorted to opening the bathroom door halfway; the door was the exact width of the hallway.
We went back to see it a couple of years ago and drove right by it twice before we recognized it. It gave us great pause. Looking back, I can't believe we lived there. Looking forward, I can't believe we came from that to where we are now.
We've obviously had our share of challenges and conflict...emotional, relational, financial. The first ten years were a struggle, the next ten were challenging on many fronts and the last ten have still provided us with plenty of opportunities to throw our hands in the air. But, in the end, we still share a deep, abiding love for one another.
And the realization that, honestly, who else would have either one of us? We've both got quirks and damaged parts. Neither one of us would have a very good profile on match.com.
So what if our love shack isn't as hoppin' as it used to be? I treasure the worn-out, lived-in, broken in jeans kind of feeling we have. We've been through a bit of the refiner's fire and we're not perfect.
We're mellowed. And we'll just keep getting better and better every year.
At least that's the plan.
"Hey, you wanna?"
"Sure, why not? I've got ten minutes before I have to take the foil off the casserole."
There you have it...brief, steamy and food at the end.
Back to the love shack...Ron and I commemorated our 34th wedding anniversary this weekend. We commemorated it by me watching Ron sleep off his jet lag, having been in California all week, working 14 hour days. We watched a little telly, went to the Farmer's Market, Ron went fishing, we both took naps.
Ok, we laid low because we're hitting the town this coming weekend with our friends, Randy and Kim, who got married exactly one week after we did in 1981. No doubt it will be a night to remember (if I take notes.)
Ron and I often look at one another and say, "Did you ever think..." We usually both shake our heads and act all mystified that we've been able to endure three plus decades. I'm sure there were plenty of folks who were whispering at our wedding, "They'll be lucky to make it six months."
We met in an anthropology course at Westminster. An 8 a.m., TTH 90 minute class, called Fossil Man. It was easily the most boring and tedious class I've ever taken. And I was a sociology major for the first three years of my class, so I know boring.
After class, we'd walk down the hill together, chatting, flirting. Still, it took my roommate to set us up a year later before we actually went on a date. After that first night, it was a whirlwind romance. We got engaged in November, 1980 and got married the following August. I was the classic "went from my parent's house to the sorority house to my husband's house."
Neither one of us had had any independent living experience. It was a rude awakening. It took us several months before we realized that spending $25 every week at Wal-Mart was not smart financial planning. Nor did we have any reliable family planning.
Thirteen months, to the day, after our wedding we were parents. The first of many unexpected twists and turns in the Martinhouse saga. It's a miracle that Kate can walk and talk and has all of her limbs. We had no idea what we were doing.
Our first house was a trailer. The bedroom was so tiny that we had to take the door off because it wouldn't shut with our double bed in it. So we resorted to opening the bathroom door halfway; the door was the exact width of the hallway.
We went back to see it a couple of years ago and drove right by it twice before we recognized it. It gave us great pause. Looking back, I can't believe we lived there. Looking forward, I can't believe we came from that to where we are now.
And the realization that, honestly, who else would have either one of us? We've both got quirks and damaged parts. Neither one of us would have a very good profile on match.com.
So what if our love shack isn't as hoppin' as it used to be? I treasure the worn-out, lived-in, broken in jeans kind of feeling we have. We've been through a bit of the refiner's fire and we're not perfect.
We're mellowed. And we'll just keep getting better and better every year.
At least that's the plan.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
westward ho
To no one's surprise I am a HUGE fan of anything that Ken Burns touches. His documentaries could provide homeschooling moms with an entire curricula of history. Just sit the kids down in front of the telly, press play and then head out on a week-long spa retreat. They are that captivating (and long).
Not long ago I finished "The West" (which I may have mentioned in a previous post, but I'm too lazy to go see if I did). Technically a "presented by" Ken Burns, the film is by Stephen Ives, but it's got Burns' fingerprints all over it. It's a well-rounded account - the good, the bad, the ugly and the shameful means by which Manifest Destiny was embraced and carried out, no matter what the cost. I won't go into detail here, but just Google Mountain Meadows and you'll read about a tragic event that I've never seen in a textbook about the American West. (Of course it's been a long spell since I saw a textbook on the American West.)
On my [unbearably hot] walk yesterday, I noticed a sign that indicated that the Oregon, Santa Fe and California trail passed right in front of me more than a century ago. I said a prayer for all the men, women and children brave enough to make the arduous journey toward what they thought would be a better life. Newly established territories and states flooded the East Coast with pamphlets promising unending acres of arable land and bounteous harvests, sweet spring waters and lots of wide open spaces. As you might guess, dust bowls, droughts and plagues of locusts were not included in the "must see to believe" verbiage.
As sweat was trickling down by back, nose and into my eyes, I thought about those poor women who were confined to long dresses, multiple undergarments and sturdy shoes. I was about to expire with yoga pants, a tank top and my new Asics. Folks were made of sturdier stock back then, I suppose. Or, more likely, they simply didn't know how hard it was going to be.
My great-grandfather was an '89er...a Norwegian immigrant running for his family's future in the Oklahoma land rush. He staked out a 161-acre tract in what is now suburban Oklahoma City. There's a street named after their family and my mother has very fond memories of her time spent on the farm. I'd give anything to be able to walk through the house and soak up the history.
Because my mind tracks like a hummingbird, I was reminded of our trip to the Grand Canyon several years ago. I was moved to tears after winding my way down the paved pathway, finally having it open up in front of me. Grandeur beyond words. As I stood there, looking from side to side, across and down I had to wonder...what in the world did the very first people to view this beautiful, cavernous hole think when they saw it for the first time? Pretty sure this is what the conversation would have been...
Man: Well, looks like we'll be stopping here for the night.
Woman: Oh, come on we can go a few more...WHOA! Well, okay then.
I mean, seriously. That thing is big. And rocky. And probably full of snakes and scorpions and other buggy things.
Pretty sure I couldn't have been a pioneer. Unless they had a tricked-out glamping Conestoga wagon.
Not long ago I finished "The West" (which I may have mentioned in a previous post, but I'm too lazy to go see if I did). Technically a "presented by" Ken Burns, the film is by Stephen Ives, but it's got Burns' fingerprints all over it. It's a well-rounded account - the good, the bad, the ugly and the shameful means by which Manifest Destiny was embraced and carried out, no matter what the cost. I won't go into detail here, but just Google Mountain Meadows and you'll read about a tragic event that I've never seen in a textbook about the American West. (Of course it's been a long spell since I saw a textbook on the American West.)
On my [unbearably hot] walk yesterday, I noticed a sign that indicated that the Oregon, Santa Fe and California trail passed right in front of me more than a century ago. I said a prayer for all the men, women and children brave enough to make the arduous journey toward what they thought would be a better life. Newly established territories and states flooded the East Coast with pamphlets promising unending acres of arable land and bounteous harvests, sweet spring waters and lots of wide open spaces. As you might guess, dust bowls, droughts and plagues of locusts were not included in the "must see to believe" verbiage.
As sweat was trickling down by back, nose and into my eyes, I thought about those poor women who were confined to long dresses, multiple undergarments and sturdy shoes. I was about to expire with yoga pants, a tank top and my new Asics. Folks were made of sturdier stock back then, I suppose. Or, more likely, they simply didn't know how hard it was going to be.
My great-grandfather was an '89er...a Norwegian immigrant running for his family's future in the Oklahoma land rush. He staked out a 161-acre tract in what is now suburban Oklahoma City. There's a street named after their family and my mother has very fond memories of her time spent on the farm. I'd give anything to be able to walk through the house and soak up the history.
Because my mind tracks like a hummingbird, I was reminded of our trip to the Grand Canyon several years ago. I was moved to tears after winding my way down the paved pathway, finally having it open up in front of me. Grandeur beyond words. As I stood there, looking from side to side, across and down I had to wonder...what in the world did the very first people to view this beautiful, cavernous hole think when they saw it for the first time? Pretty sure this is what the conversation would have been...
Man: Well, looks like we'll be stopping here for the night.
Woman: Oh, come on we can go a few more...WHOA! Well, okay then.
I mean, seriously. That thing is big. And rocky. And probably full of snakes and scorpions and other buggy things.
Pretty sure I couldn't have been a pioneer. Unless they had a tricked-out glamping Conestoga wagon.
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