Sandy and I went from no grandchildren in 1997 to 8
grandchildren less than 8 years later.
We missed having 7 grandkids under the age of 7, but with the twins, we
ended up in 2005 with 8 grandkids under the age of 8! As I write this, two of them are now
teenagers, Ryan and Alex, and Brianna is just a few months away from 13. Awhile back someone introduced the acronym
DINK, meaning “Double income – no kids,” and some wag added that they would
become GONGs – Growing old – no grandkids.
Glad that wasn’t our case!
I remember when Amy turned 13 and we could say for the
first time that we had 3 teenagers. Now they
have 3 teenagers! I remember when Amy
turned 20 how we could say that all of our kids were out of their teens. Now Amy is coming up on 40, and all of our
kids will be in their forties.
Yikes! It is hard to believe that
Ryan will be driving soon. At 15, he has
his learner’s permit, and has lots of experience on the roads already. In fact, growing up on 22 acres with a
variety of farm equipment, he has a ton of driving experience.
I have to agree with the person who pointed out that when
you are raising kids, the hours seem to drag by so slowly, but the years fly by
so fast! Our “bucket list” now includes
dancing at their weddings. If young
people continue to marry at later and later ages, Sandy and I will need to keep
taking good care of ourselves and hope to beat the odds. We know that anything can happen to anybody
at any age. There are no guarantees, no
matter how much care we take.
Sandy attended her 50th high school class
reunion in 2013. From the pictures and
the comments, she was one of – it not the – hottest woman there. She has taken really good care of her skin
ever since I can remember, and she has kept her weight under control as best
she could. She gets a lot of compliments
and surprised responses when she mentions her age and the ages of her
grandchildren. In preparation for the
reunion we gathered her Albany High School yearbooks and saw the activities she
was involved in. In addition to
cheerleading, she was on several leadership committees and was actually Girls’
League President her senior year. She
acknowledges that, indeed, she and her buddies “ruled the school” back in the
day. In today’s terminology, she was one
of the “populars” but, as Brianna would say, not the mean populars, the nice
populars.
Sandy attended San Jose State College (now University),
but she says it was to get her “MRS Degree” (that is, to find a husband, not
get an education). She had taken some
Home Economics classes in high school (sewing, budgeting, cooking, etc) and had
declared that as her college major. She
completed the two years of general education requirements, but once we decided
to get married, she dropped her plans to return to college for what would have
been her junior year. I understand that no college has offered the Home
Economics major for many years now, although cooking and culinary school are
all the rage. In my day, with my
background, I thought guys who liked to cook were sissies. I don’t think so anymore.
Sandy laments that sewing is becoming a lost art,
although Brianna seems to be taking a real interest as a by-product of her
interest in fashion and design. Women
are into careers now. They would only
sew if it was a favorite hobby; the way cooking is with so many. Amy and Brianna have a cooking channel on TV
whenever I walk in. Other aspects of
home economics include planning meals, going shopping, running a budget,
balancing a checkbook, etc, and I see Amy and Michelle doing all those
things. The big change maybe is
housekeeping. Both girls have
housekeeping services, which would have been totally unheard of in our
day. At our level of living on Long
Island, Mom and the other women around us were more likely to be cleaning other
people’s houses than paying someone to clean theirs!
My life has been overwhelmingly defined by my marriage
and relationship with Sandy. I have told
her more than a few times that I was like a blank slate when she met me, ready
to be shaped by the woman I married. I guess
that’s a mixed metaphor. You don’t shape
a blank slate; you write on it. I feel I
was more “shaped” or “molded” than written upon, but the blob of clay analogy
does not work for me, so I was a blank slate ready to be molded. Let it go.
A good example came up recently. I am mindful of greeting cards, but Bobby is
not. The only reason I am is because I’m
married to Sandy; and my theory is that if Bobby was married to a woman who
placed importance on greeting cards he would, too. I’m sure there are many other ways in which I
have changed because of Sandy, but it has been so long that I have forgotten
them. Another one that comes to mind
because it is more recent is routinely shaving almost every day. Whenever I didn’t have to shave, that is, on
non-working days, I would spend a lot of mental energy trying to decide whether
I should skip shaving for that day.
Partly, it has to do with self-respect. I am self-conscious about it and feel
“skuzzy” when I am not clean shaven.
Finally, it occurred to me and I said to Sandy, “As busy and productive
as you keep yourself, if you can spend an hour plus every morning in front of
the mirror, surely I can take 5 minutes to shave.” She promptly explained, quite
matter-of-factly, that she was willing to spend so much time for the simple
reason that she is vain.
Oh. That’s why she
spends so much time in front of the mirror.
I realized that I needed to be vain, too, at least vain enough to shave
every day. Up to that point I would talk
myself into shaving mainly out of consideration for Sandy. She likes a clean shaven man around, and I
like a happy wife, so… Now I can use vanity as an added motivator. Years ago, the shaving products were not as
good as they are now, and my face would need a break once per week from the
process of shaving. These days the
shaving gels and razors are so good that I don’t need a break. It probably didn’t help that I always bought
the cheapest shaving cream and cheapest razors on the shelf. Similar to the comb versus the hairbrush, and
the aluminum ladder versus the wooden ladder, both of which are mentioned
elsewhere, I thought only gullible, illogical people would fall for the
marketing and merchandising schemes that allowed the big brand name companies
to charge more for their products.
It is actually hard for me to believe now that I would
always choose the $0.89 container of shaving cream over the $1.99 container,
with no thought to whether the latter was a better product. (It can’t be twice as good, right?) A can of shaving cream lasts maybe two
months, so the $1.10 difference = 55 cents per month, yet I was willing, nay
committed to buying the cheaper product just on principle. How small minded can you get? Now whenever I find myself devoting mental
energy to whether or not to shave, I realize that is just an old habit. I give myself a mental kick in the rear and
go shave. It is such a quick and easy
process with today’s superior products.
In many cases, husbands take their social cues from their
wives, and I have been no exception, except for my willingness to visit family
and attend family gatherings. It has
never taken any arm-twisting to get me there.
I’ve always enjoyed getting together with family. It was almost always her family, since mine
was mostly on the east coast. I don’t
know how many times we crammed the 3 kids and all their equipment into the VW;
were running late or getting lost as usual; creating a ruckus at the back of a
church or something as we came stumbling in, all heads turning, some amused,
some not amused, etc.
One of Sandy’s close relatives, who shall remain unnamed,
was just the opposite. She and her
husband would show up reluctantly and would be announcing on their way in the
door that they had to leave early for some weak reason, or no reason. It was so
obvious that they were doing the bare minimum to comply with expectations. They did not want to be there. I never understood why not. Well, now that I think about it in hindsight,
if your marriage isn’t going well, the longer you hang around with other
people, the sooner that will be noticed.
That couple divorced as soon as their children were old enough not to
require child support.
I hope during the course of my “memories” to identify the
relevant keys or “secrets” to a happy marriage.
We have been asked many times and do not know what to say. Since we have actually had it, many people
will believe whatever we say, so we want to be careful and not mislead
anyone. It seems like a cop-out to say
we were just lucky. How does that help
anyone? One thing that comes to mind
right now is the idea that marriage is not 50/50, but 100/100. But of course you each need to like your
spouse and value the relationship enough to be motivated and willing to give
100%. If the stinker is doing something
you don’t like, you may not want to be the chump who is giving more than the
other is giving.
I’ve always felt that Sandy deserves my best and have
wanted her to be a happy woman.
Why? I don’t know. How do you find such a man? I don’t know.
And Sandy is not perfect, but neither am I. If I want her to put up with my faults, then
I need to overlook hers. That could be
one of the keys: Be willing and able to subordinate your ego for the sake of
the other, or for the sake of the relationship.
Along with that, I know that Sandy means well, even if she says
something that is critical, or does something that is irritating. And being the blank slate that I am, if she
finds fault with me, I change, to the extent that I can. Some women might not like a man who is too
easily molded…so we are back to: How do you find the man you want? I don’t know.
We could even ask: How do you know what kind of man your spouse
needs? I don’t know.
Same goes for finding a woman like Sandy. She has put up with all my changes in life,
and there have been several major ones, some for the better, and some not. She could see that I didn’t have a lot of
common sense; had a lot to learn about being an adult, about being a husband
and father. She always gave me the freedom
to fail and learn from my mistakes. She
could be the wind in my sails, but she let me figure out how to operate the
sails. I’ve never sailed, but it looks
like you need to know where you want to go and then set the sails so you go in
that direction. Sandy had the grace to
let me fumble around and try to get us there.
How do you find such a woman? I
don’t know. I can’t say that she
believed in me so much as she was willing to be with me, no matter where I
ended up, rather than at a more ideal place with someone else. I hope that is not an old-fashioned attitude,
but one that maybe only comes along once in a lifetime for each of us.
I have said on several occasions that Sandy is probably
the easiest person in the world to live with.
What I mean is that she doesn’t depend on me to entertain her or to make
her happy or keep her busy. She is
un-needy in those ways, which takes quite a burden off me. She is a self-starter; a self-motivator. I have known husbands whose lives were not
their own, because they had to worry about making the time and having the
energy to entertain their wives or keep them happy, never knowing whether they
were going to come home to an angry or depressed wife, a demanding wife, a worn
out wife, or what. Sandy has been like a
rock that way, and a great partner to meet the challenges of life with. I’m pretty sure marriage licenses were only
$2.00 in San Mateo County in 1966. I
hear they are way more than that now.
Every once in awhile I tease Sandy with some form of: “What a
bargain! $2.00 for a lifetime of
faithful service!”
No comments:
Post a Comment