Mamala went to Texas this weekend to celebrate the thirty-year anniversary of D & B, who are family friends. Their daughter L was a playmate growing up. They lived in a small bungalow one street over from us, close enough that I didn’t have to cross the Big Street in order to walk there.
D & B are both attorneys, and they had given L a bunch of old textbooks which we used in our games of School. We spent many hours underlining them using a variety of felt tip pens. L also had an impressive assortment of Star Wars toys. My favorite was the Death Star trash compactor complete with spongy debris.
D & B were very calm and collected parents. One afternoon L and I got into the cookie dough while they were out on a quick errand. They pulled into the driveway just in time to see us through the window, closing the refrigerator and hustling back to L’s room. They came in and asked, “What were you all doing?”
The ritual at my house was to answer “Nothing” right off the bat, which both parent and child knew wasn’t true, but it was a way of easing into it. This time, my reflexive “Nothing” coincided with L’s “Eating cookie dough.” I looked at her in awe. Wow, she tells the truth the first time!
They taught her honesty and self-assurance both. One time we were kicking the football around in the front yard, being silly, when some older teenagers across the street burst out laughing. I decided they were laughing at us and wanted to stop playing our game. L was genuinely puzzled. “Why should we stop? We’re just playing around. Why do you care what they think anyway?”
Why indeed? I still ask myself that question.
Anyway, D & B have been together thirty years. I can’t quite fathom what thirty years is like, but they inspire me to give it a go. R and I are less than halfway there and it seems like we’ve already been through a couple of lifetimes’ worth of stuff. We’ll hit our thirty-year anniversary in the year 2024—we’re talking hovercraft and apes taking over the planet here. D & B’s thirty years began in 1976, amid the red, white and blue of the bicentennial, I suppose. Now we have $3 gas and the war on terror.
Thirty years. That’s about twice as long as my parents lasted. R’s too. Which is peculiar, seeing as how our parents are all straight, and everyone knows that people like D & B are the real threat to marriage and the traditional family.
Or something like that.
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
RM, I love this post, and I would love to see it, or something very like it, published somewhere where it could be read by more people. Maybe the OP-Ed section (or failing that, Letters) of your local newspaper?
And I’d *really* love to know D&B’s child-raising secrets!
This is a great post. Wow. I was picturing ozzie and harriet, only with feathered hair, instead of ozzie and arnold or harriet and gladys. (Which was it, by the way?)
Harriet and Gladys. And those names crack me up!
Bravo for B & D and bravo for you posting this!
How cool!
Love it!
WHAT a nice post!!! It’s a keeper. I told my mother (almost 92) this morning that I’d print her a copy, so she could see it.
I don’t think we have any particular child-raising secrets except a lot of honesty, but maybe the secret to 30 years of togetherness is that “straight is harder”? I don’t know, of course, because I tried straight and I couldn’t do it
Love you guys, D
Well done. Great point. Excellent parenting.
Great post. I agree with Washington Post editorials today: marriage amendment hoo-hah is all a distraction from the world’s real problems and the president’s genuine problems (i.e. that he is a miserable failure as a world leader).
Happy Anniversary to B&D!
RM, I was thinking this would be a great essay for the “My Turn” column in Newsweek. Would you consider writing for such a pedestrian publication?
I can barely read the stuff about the proposed ammendment to the constitution b/c it aggravates me so, but one thing did catch my attention: someone (maybe Bill Frist?) said that heterosexual marriage is the only union that has been “proven” (his words) to guarantee the safety of children. What a load of hooey.
D & B - happy anniversary, and may you share many more happy years together.
I’ve been thinking about it today… it could be polished and prettied a bit for a print venue. One problem–while using a person’s initials is a pretty common blog convention, a print publication is going to want names, even made up ones, and I can’t figure out how to do that without giving away the ending.
But maybe that’s not the heart of the piece anyway. Maybe the heart of it is the irony (cruel irony, perhaps) that these two people inspire me in my marriage, yet they are unable to be married legally; in fact the current debate is whether to make it even harder with a constitutional amendment.
Incidentally, people of my generation are most likely to support gay marriage, and so if by some chance the constitutional amendment were passed (and there’s no way it’s gonna, and everyone knows it, which makes this debate so much pointless window dressing), I think we’d be dealing with a repeal of prohibition situation.
It is ironic that you just posted this. On my way to work yesterday, I stopped for coffee with two friends. We were sharing spiritual resources for living after a conversation we had at the home of mutual friend the week before. This couple have been together for 30 years also. They joined our mainline-denominational church after returning to our town from living in CA for 20 years. Their love, their dedication to our church and its programs and their leadership was outstanding. We now have had to resort to seeing each other outside the context of our Christian community since this past summer they decided they could no longer be members of a denomination that prohibits ordination of gays. They miss us, they miss our Christian community, we really miss them. Why do we continue to let institutional battles and theological debates over gays distract us from the real mission of the church and Christianity - peace, feeding the hungry, discrimination, etc.? It seems very similar to the distraction strategy - aka Bush.
Another one of my friends who reads your blog told me that she has forwarded your blog to every gay friend she has. Why not use public radio as your forum for this piece. It has struck such a reponsive chord.
actually you could use intials and then names at the end
this was great. thank you !
I’ve been enjoying your much deserved praise for this beautiful piece.
I appreciate your point about the fact that, thanks be to God, it seems very unlikely that the amendment will garner the 67 votes needed for it to pass in the Senate…but interestingly, this morning reports are noting that the amendment will likely fair much better here in 2006 than it did in 2004, perhaps even gaining a majority.
You may remember the promise I made to myself and to my church in 2004, that if the Amendment passes, I’m headed for Canada. I find it rather depressing that in the two years since, MORE senators now support the Amendment here and the new Prime Minister of Canada is launching a (thankfully doomed) effort to repeal gay marriage up there.
I agree with everyone who says it is a smokescreen and an effort to kiss up to the far right in the GOP…but the fact remains that at least in the last 2 years, support for this hateful amendment hasn’t really diminished.
But, I’ve got to tell you, after last night’s Daily Show…I felt a whole lot better. Despite what he was saying, even Bill Bennett seemed to know how foolish his side was sounding.
Bravo!
Bravo, too, to D&B. Thirty years is certainly better than I did.
Re putting it into print: often, the names are changed for pivacy. so maybe Pat and Chris?
Publishing the piece in some form sounds like a great idea for so many reasons, but what a great continuing 30th celebration for D & B!
In 2001 someone I barely knew asked if he could submit my name for Female Grand Marshal of the Gay Pride Parade here in Houston. I asked Bobbie and we said “sure.” Low and behold, I won.
So it turned out that is how we celebrated our 25th - riding in a convertible with my mother (86 at the time), my daughter, and Lelia’s only child (at the time), Eleanor, who was almost 2. It was very hot and humid (2 weeks after Tropical Storm Allison that almost caused the parade to be cancelled), and awesome.
Good point, ChiRev. It’s not good to get complacent.
In fact, [donning my tin foil hat] it’s easy for me to get cynical and suspicious about this. The “this is nothing more than a gesture to the far right” meme is so prevalent, I wonder whether the Republicans are feeding into that sentiment to make those opposed to the amendment complacent, and then before you know it, it’s law.
Just like the “Republicans are scared of Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate” meme was everywhere not so long ago. Personally I think Hillary’s totally unelectable, and I couldn’t understand those stories in which Frist et al were quaking in their boots–unless it’s a strategy to get Democrats to throw their support behind her, knowing there’s no way she’d win. “Don’t throw me in that briar patch!”
No, I’m not paranoid, why do you ask?
Jon Stewart was brilliant last night on this subject. I’m constantly amazed that he, a cable comedy show host, asks more tough and to the point questions than any journalist I’ve seen from any of the major networks. Bravo, Jon!
Matt,
A point not lost on the Peabody committee in 2000 and 2004, when NO “news” coverage of the elections received nods, but Stewart and his crew did…both times.
Chris and Pat, Terry and Shawn, Sam and somebody, I’m out of gender neutral names….
Ah, ppb, I had just thought of Chris and Pat, too.
Great story, and congratulations to D and B.
Yes, D&B, Happy Anniversary.
Brilliant post. I never saw it coming! Go figure. And hurrah to D & B, real inspirations. I hope K and I make it to 30. Perhaps we’ll be able to get legally married by then. By all means, publish this somewhere. I came up with Chris and Dale.
D and B, who have been our friends for several years, told me about this post at brunch today, and B sent me the link so I could read it myself. What a beautifully written piece! No wonder they loved it.