Fifty Years is a Long Long Time

Fifty years is a very long time. Broken down, it’s five decades; 18,250 days together with one person...but who’s counting?.  Sharon and I have probably seen it all, done it sometimes and been there more than a couple of times. A man, any man, should be so lucky. Granted, there were a few stumbles over the years, a couple of missteps perhaps but no detours to take us off course. Since only five percent of married couples ever make that milestone (blame D and D) we thought it certainly was something to celebrate.

So how to recognize that achievement? Sharon knew what our kids were up to and she wanted no part of it! True to form, both Melanie and Brian thought it would nice to have a large surprise party for Sharon and me on our 50th Wedding Anniversary. While that was a very kind gesture from the kids, Sharon wanted only a small intimate gathering with the immediate family.

So that’s just what we did by spending a weekend up at the Ruttgers Lake Resort outside of Garrison, Minnesota. It happened back in June when our respective calendars allowed us all the time to gather together.

On the way up to the lake, Sharon stopped at the old curio shop where she had worked two summers while still in High School. Those two summers were truly memorable for Sharon and it was a thrill for her to share some lakeside stories and a mini-tour of the olde shoppes for her grandchildren.

LaComb/McMahon family gatherings are never dull. This special weekend was no different. There was an art contest, a magic show put on by all the kids, lots of card playing and just plain relaxing around our townhouse.

Water activities included a pontoon tour of the lake, tubbing, Jet-Skis, kayaks, paddleboards and acrobatics on the lakeside trampoline.

In a way, our Ruttgers weekend was a good parable for the last 50 years.

It began in the Virgin Islands for our three week honeymoon. A brief stay in Tennessee and five wonderful years in Maryland. Then we settled into our classic Orin Thompson rambler for another forty plus years living in Apple Valley.

Now back at Ruttgers and safely sequestered in old Adirondack chairs, Sharon and I watched the grandkids ping-pong on and off a trampoline offshore, and I couldn’t help but wonder how it went from my first opening line: ‘Got change for a quarter’ to that attractive blond receptionist back in 1969 to sitting next to this grand old dame, enjoying our grandchildren’s aerobatic antics off shore.

It’s been one heck of an interesting fifty years. So how did we make it through fifty years? Dumb luck on my part and plenty of patience on Sharon’s part. I guess the old cliché ‘whatever it takes’ probably holds some credence here.

·       I want to give credit to the best daughter-in-law in the world for the wonderful Snapfish book she put together for our anniversary. I have borrowed liberally some of her pictures for this blog.

Striking Gold Again

It’s come full circle now.

As I was reviewing an odd and eclectic assortment of notes from over fifty years of itinerant wanderings in this wilderness called life, I struck gold once again. These vernacular meanderings were scraps picked up through my research for my latest play entitled ‘Frenchy’s Eats.’

This cache of soulful phrases gave me a clearer picture / explanation for the past behavior, empty excuses, denial and lack of guilt on the part of several women (especially my Mother) that I’ve known over the years. One phrase stood out among the rest and it only took me fifty years to figure it out.

High School was hard enough to tiptoe through that minefield called first girlfriend, first love, first breakup, and nagging self-doubt. It didn’t help that at about the same time I came across a worn out paperback book that so accurately captured the electric, painful, gut-wrenching throes of first love.

The Fume of Poppies by Jonathan Kozol is ‘an underground classic of first love and sexual discovery.’ It encapsulated and ‘put in parenthesis’ the phrase I had just come across.

There was another hint years later when I watched a movie entitled: ‘500 Days of Summer’ and I felt Deja-vu all over again.

The phrase in question came to me in the cryptic notes of an old acquaintance that happened to be female. She was talking about male-female relationships and what could go wrong. Her explanation was simple and to the painful point. From her point of view, the other party (a woman in this case although it could easily go either way) was ’emotionally unavailable.’

I immediately thought ‘so here we go again!’  I’ve found another phrase that I love because it goes to the core of issues I’ve had in the past.  It took one woman’s insight to clarify the actions of others. Turns out, several women in my past lives were most definitely emotionally unavailable, some closer to me than others.

Like past phrases such as ‘The Boy She Left Behind,’  ‘I’ve Moved On’ and ‘Goin Where the Southern Cross the Dog,’ this newest phrase cuts right to the heart of the matter. It encapsulates a simple explanation for some of my childhood drama and trauma and several failed romances. On the flip side, it has provided heavy fodder for several of my plays-in-progress.

It also got me to thinking about personal relationships and how some of them succeed and how others fail. I love, absolutely love, to reflect on how some couples (despite their seemingly different personalities and take on life) have lasted a lifetime while others seem to fall by the wayside, tripped up by a myriad of marital stumbles from which one or both parties never recover.

As a writer, I’ve had fun over the years creating characters and then manipulating their relationships with one another. Some are based on real life and others on an over-active imagination. In either case, those ‘golden phrases’ give my imagination a platform upon which to build the dialogue between characters. It gives credence to their actions and reactions to one another. It also smacks of real life.

Love in the A Shau was my first novel (aside from the westerns) that really tried to capture past and current emotions while tangling up and then untangling the crosscurrent of feelings between my two main protagonists.

My latest novel ‘Playground for the Devil’ was a continuation of that invisible third party manipulation between characters. As is usually the case, the male protagonist shares a fair amount of resemblance to my own thought patterns. The female protagonist is a full-blown mental meandering of my past female encounters, engagements, skirmishes and entanglements.

Once I’m in the ’zone’ I have no idea what these folks are going to say or do. But having mental pictures brought on by those ‘golden phrases’ has saved me on many an occasion. I guess it’s all part and parcel for life in my fictional world where I get to imagine and chronicle the sometime rollercoaster of emotions between my characters.

Art of Gratitude

Recently, I self-published my 12th and latest novel entitled ‘Playground for the Devil.’ As I always do, I sent copies to my family members and, this time, included several friends who I thought would appreciate the book. Writing the book had been a long and arduous task but I was proud of the outcome and especially the storyline I had created. I wanted to share it with other folks who might enjoy an easy read and a real suspense thriller.

I wasn’t expecting a star-spangled parade or a bouquet of flowers for my gesture. A simple ‘thank you’ via e-mail or print or a phone call would have sufficed. I got two acknowledgments. My wife wasn’t particularly surprised. The kids knew the book was coming and so did some of those friends.’ It wasn’t unexpected’, she said, ‘so they probably thought ‘oh, thanks’ to themselves and that was that.’ Guess, I didn’t see it that way.

I think I’ve become spoiled by being around Sharon for the last fifty plus years. Granted, she’s a bit over the top when it comes to sending out cards and notes for any and every occasion. It’s not that she gets a lot of cards in return, but she feels good about her gestures of kindness. I thought I would follow suite. Turns out, it was an interesting failed experience that got me to thinking.

Aiding me in that examination of gratitude and appreciation was a new book I just received from Better World Books; my new ‘go to’ source for an eclectic variety of reading material. Where was this book when I was growing up and emulating (on a very subconscious level) the actions or inactions of my Mother?

Now I will be the first to tell anyone that I am totally unqualified to talk about gratitude and appreciation. While I understand this is a lame-ass retreat from responsibility, I can only fall back on the ‘excuse’ that I wasn’t raised that way. My mother was a lifelong survivor of her German heritage and Catholic upbringing. Self-reliance was built into her DNA and asking for help was something she rarely if ever did (and only then) under great duress. I think her attitude about gratitude was “they know I appreciate what they’ve done,’ I don’t have to tell them.”

Unfortunately, I picked up a lot of those same selfish traits and brought them to our marriage. Sharon’s gestures of appreciation at first confused, amused, and befuddled me. Where was the ROI or recognition for her gesture of kindness; I certainly didn’t see it coming back to her in spades.

But gradually over the years, I came to realize that wasn’t the point. If it was the right thing to do, then expecting recognition was only a nice added benefit. While it hurt not to be recognized as a kind gesture, the gesture itself should be satisfaction enough…because it was the right thing to do. Hard lesson to learn for someone like myself.

As a society, I think we’ve become more self-absorbed and unaware of kind gestures on the part of others. Among a few of my neighbors here in the sunny south land, there is an attitude of entitlement. ‘We’re here, we got it and you work for us.’ Those particular neighbors are not our friends. We just share the same green space with them.

Often times, I have to remind myself that the simple act of showing gratitude and appreciation really isn’t a monumental task to tackle. A simple ‘thank you’ to the clerk or attendant or server doesn’t hurt or diminish your own stature.

I always made a point of thanking my repairmen when I was in the real estate business. My gardener and pool man are told that on numerous occasions. While I’m not the card-sender or note-writer like my wife, I do try to make the effort when it’s called for. It doesn’t hurt and actually feels pretty good on the inside.

Who knew?