Maybe it's the luck of the Irish, getting married on St. Patrick's Day way back in 1990. Whatever, here Laurel and I are, celebrating our 18th anniversary.
Which is many years more than Dr. Laura Schlessinger would have predicted our marriage would last. As I observed in my earlier take that, Dr. Laura! post, she doesn't believe that someone can make sound decisions about a new relationship for at least a year after getting divorced.
That's ridiculous. Laurel and I met in July 1989. I proposed to her in October. We got married the next March.
There aren't any rules in love. Except, keep on learning how to play the game, because there's nothing else to do.
This anniversary means a lot to me. I was married a bit more than eighteen years in my first martial go-around, which ended in divorce. So Laurel and I soon will be together longer than Sue and I were.
I don't know if there's any generalizable lesson to be drawn from this except: if at first a marriage doesn't succeed, try again.
Second time around, hopefully you'll have learned something about how two people can live together without driving each other crazy.
As Laurel and I have managed to do, against Dr. Laura's odds.
Of course, I don't know how much credibility she has, given her recent statement that Eliot Spitzer's wife bears responsibility for his running to prostitutes.
Shifting gears…Portland talk show hosts Mark & Dave had people call in with Irish jokes this afternoon. One had Dave, a comedian himself, laughing hysterically. It was my favorite also.
Fortunately – because I mangled the joke when I re-told it to my wife – I found it online.
Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.
He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"
She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. Me husband passed away last night."
The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?"
She says, "That he did, Father…"
The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"
She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down that damn gun.'"
At the unhappy end of my first marriage, I wouldn't have found this joke so funny. Now, I do.
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