Love & Marriage

We are back from Texas. I took the laptop but when I had time, I didn't have the wifi access or it wasn't free -- mostly it got too hectic. We had fun for the most part, though I am glad to be home. I wanted to post about our wedding anniversary first...

June is an auspicious month for our family. On June 9 my parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. True to their style they didn't want to have a 'do' and chose to honor the date with a dinner just the two of them...mom and dad are an inspiration. They have never dated anyone else -- something I have always found amazing -- and from the age of 15 and 16 (mom was the 'older woman') have gone steady, and have been pinned, dropped, engaged and married, in the way people 'went steady' back in the day...this is their wedding day...they waited 7 years before having kids...mom worked as a 4th grade teacher, and dad was getting an architecture degree, then they traveled as he was in the Air Force for a stint, and finally settled down in AR, where he left to join an architecture firm and they began their family...


Things got a little more complicated for us kids. Here my brother Steve (red suspenders at far left) and sister-in-law Susan (gorgeous girl in the middle in blue dress, with dark hair and bangs) are surrounded by family and friends after their nuptials on June 12 at a good friend's house. Steve and Susan were high school sweethearts for 2 years until he left for college and she dumped him (broke his heart). Susan went on to marry twice, and Steve married and divorced once, before they met up again. Today they have been married 22 years...(mom and dad are seated on the couch - she's in the light-colored dress and he's next to her..I am next to Steve with Carol between us, with an unfortunate permanent and red hair).


Excy and I celebrating our garden wedding on the lawn and terrace of the Big House in Stevenson, MD 20 years ago, June 15th.


Excy and I 'met cute,' in the parlance of the classic old movies I love to watch...I was a happily divorced writer and editor of ARCHITECTURE magazine in DC, and he closed his architecture practice in Austin after he broke his back and was living and working in Baltimore. I was dating an architect in NYC and his distance was one of the things I liked about our relationship...

One afternoon my editor-in-chief threw a project on my desk and suggested it would make a good article for a column I wrote about new designs. Usually when a journalist calls an architect they're thrilled to have their work published -- particularly in one of the three prestigious architecture magazines in the country...but this guy sounded peeved. "Whattya do? Pull it out of the round file??" Okay, I responded, sorry to bother you. Click.

Twenty minutes or so the phone rang.* He said he was so sorry, just we had the slides for over a year and he had been trying to get them back to publish them elsewhere (they were taken by a primere architectural photographer). After we got it straightened out, we began the business portion of the phone call. When I played the tape back later I was surprised by how much we laughed and 'got on,' and noted that about 30 minutes was all business and the rest was all hahaha...

After two weeks I reluctantly called to thank him and said I had everything I needed and to tell him what issue it'd be in...and the next day he called. "Hey, kid. Just missed talking to you." (He is 11 years older). Because I couldn't very well gab away at work I gave him my home phone. He would call every night around 11 and we'd talk for a long time....it occurred to me he was checking up on me...

After three months of this, he proposed meeting...he had asked before but I kept putting it off...there was the architect in NYC (though that infatuation was fading)...and I was having so much fun talking to Excy...I knew it'd burst my bubble if we met and he was blonde or fat and bald...(not that anything's wrong with that...)

Finally he said this was ridiculous...we would be meeting...I protested that I had to work that Saturday...he replied he would pick me up for lunch. At this point we hadn't discussed what either of us looked like, but he said he was 'tall,' and I said I was tall and had (then) auburn hair...At the appointed time, I nervously sat in the lobby and waited...and in he walked. And my first thought when he swung through the door was Damn! I don't want to get married again! It took awhile of course, and we lived together awhile, but after that day it was pretty much over for us with anyone else...


* I never knew 'his' side of the story for 14 years, until he told a friend who asked how we met---apparently he called my editor-in-chief to complain and 'ask if he was slipping,' as he'd never had a lowly (my words) associate editor contact him before, having been used to a senior editor or 'the' editor...Mr. Canty assured him that "He wanted to meet this girl......Don't you have a new restaurant you designed somewhere? You should take her to lunch." "Don, I've never had to take an editor to lunch before -- why do you want me to take her to lunch??" "You aren't listening to me. You want to meet this girl..."

I wish I had known that my reserved, taciturn and wonderful boss set us up. He's no longer living, but thank you, Mr. Canty...