Parrothead Ramblings

The beginning of the Crime Dog Family, September 1974.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. It seems odd that The Fetching Mrs. Crime Dog would have her birthday one day, and that our anniversary would be the next. There's a story there.

Gee, I bet that comes as a surprise, huh?

TFMCD and I met and began dating in February 1972 when I was a Junior and she a Sophomore in high school. It was an honest-to-goodness love at first sight story. I was head-over-heels out-of-my-gourd unabashedly infatuated with her from Day 1. For God's sake, look at the picture from yesterday's Blog! How could I not be? I had no clue what she saw in me. I just didn't want her to stop seeing it.

We were pretty much inseparable all through high school. Her parents practically adopted me, but it's not like I gave them much of a choice. I just wouldn't go away.
As I was preparing to graduate in 1973, I could think of only one thing:

Marrying that girl.

I had very little hope for college in those days. Most of the little money I could come up with would have been spent on beer and weed in the first month of school. I would have probably just wasted the rest. So I did the only logical thing: I enlisted.

How could I miss? They gave me a place to sleep and food to eat, and more money than I could ever hope to spend - $289 per month. And here's the clincher: with a real job with benefits and a future, maybe, just maybe, I could marry that girl.

So off I went to get my head shaved and a combat boot up my ass. And when I came home on leave after basic training, I brought an engagement ring with me. Being that her Dad was quite a traditionalist, I knew I would have to ask him for permission to marry his daughter if I was to have even a prayer. How do you ask a man if you can take away his youngest daughter? She was still only 17 years old. It took time, but I finally screwed up my courage one night and headed over there. When I got there, I was disappointed to find that Dad had already gone to bed. Mom was still up, so I told her what I wanted to do. The temperature dropped a few degrees in the room.

It's fine with me. But Daddy will never go for it. No way.

It was now or never. No turning back. If I gave up then, I knew I'd be an old man before I got the guts to ask again. So I said, with no confidence whatsoever,

"Well, let's wake him up and see."


Oh. no. I don't think you want to do that.

You have to understand how much this man loved to sleep. Waking him up for anything short of a fishing trip or his house on fire (in that order of importance) could be hazardous to one's health. No matter. My bones would heal with time. My heart would not.

"Yes. I do. Let's wake him up."

Your funeral.

So down the hallway comes her Dad, rubbing his eyes and probably wondering whether he should grab a fishing rod, a fire extinguisher, or a shotgun.

"Sir, I would like to ask your permission to marry your daughter."

He was way smarter than me. Saw it coming a mile away. He knew two things before I ever showed up that night: He knew that one day soon, I would ask to marry his baby. He also knew that I would, without the slightest hesitation, give my life for her.

You have my permission. But I won't sign for her. You'll have to wait until she's 18 so she can sign for herself.

Done deal. On her 18th birthday, we went down and bought a marriage license. The next day, we got married. That's why her birthday and our anniversary fall on consecutive days. We headed off into the world together with a car, a goldfish, and about $500 in the bank. See that picture up there? Know why it looks like it was taken with a Kodak Instamatic? Because it was. It was the most anybody could afford. We'd been married 14 years before we we could even buy our first home.

How's this for irony? State law in those days said a woman was an adult at age 18. A man had to be 21. I had to get my Mommy's permission to get married. Go figure.

Today marks 31 years of marriage. We've seen a lot together. We've lived in eleven different cities or towns and two foreign nations. We were split apart for a whole year, me with an M-16 on the Turkish/Soviet border, her with a six-month-old baby in New Mexico. We somehow managed to put each other through college. We've shared the joy and the heartbreak of raising three children to adulthood. One was pretty easy. Two required a support group. Really. No, really. Tried religion, but I wasn't good at it. Tried again later, but it's just not us I guess. We're doting on one grandchild while anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next one in February. We've buried our Dads, my mother, and our brothers together. I've fretted over her in the hospital, and she's fretted over me. We've watched family members marry, divorce, marry again. You name it, we've done it. Our hearts have been broken and mended together again so many times, we can't tell any more where one ends and the other begins.

And that's the way we like it. Thirty-one years. Three-plus decades. And you know what? As much as things change, they seem to stay the same:

I'm still head-over-heels out-of-my-gourd unabashedly infatuated with her. And I still to this day have no clue what she ever saw in me. I'm just glad she still sees it.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart. MTAOAFAE.
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