A Night To Remember

It was a day like any other day, except I was to be married. I remember it well. As I’ve told the story for years, it had started when I was minding my own business, putting a new headlight into an old car I owned. It was in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Cantrell Avenue, Lincoln Boulevard or Highway 10, whatever. It went by several names. Anyway, it’s where the Dillard’s headquarters is today, but so far they’ve failed to erect an historical marker.

As I say, I was minding my own business when my next-door neighbor’s sister and her friend walked by.

That’s not exactly accurate. They “sashayed” by, as they say in the South. I knew the sister, but not her friend. They stopped for a second to say hello. The sister introduced us and something shot through my heart like a sparkling arrow. The beautiful thing standing there had long red hair, and though she claims not to have said it, I knew what she was thinking from the look on her face.

“What the hell are you looking at?”

That was a long time ago, and what it led to was a little ceremony in Lonoke, Arkansas 47 years ago tonight where that cute little redhead and I exchanged wedding vows, absent, at her instructions, that “obey crap.”

What that little ceremony led to was the rip-roaringest, hot-damnedness, gob-smackingest adventure on which a man ever set sail. I think I’ll leave it at that. I’m not sure about that “statute of limitations” thing.

Anyway, she taught me lots over the years.

About writing: “If you have to ask if it’s proper, it’s not.”

About humor: “It’s not that damned funny.”

About shortcomings: “Yes I knew that when I married you, but it’s gotten worse.”

About strength through religion: “Remember Joseph in the lion’s den.”

About times of trouble: “Pretend the pirates are torturing you.”

About stray or impure thoughts: “Your eyes are gonna pop out.”

About adventure: “Let me jump straddle of a string, and I’ll be ready.”

About orders: “I’ll put that on my ‘Things to think about doing list.’”

About finding one’s way through a dark and troubled world, filled with dangers, toils, and snares: “It’s a good thing they put you in the Navy and gave you a rope and they didn’t put you in the Army and give you a map.”

Sometimes I envy normal people. Sometimes I pity them. Sometimes I wonder what they talk about at night. Sometimes I just sit and stare at a world that I know would have been a heck of a lot less interesting if I hadn’t been out on the parking lot that evening 47 years ago.

As the late Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”