Thirty-Eight Years

Taos snow scene

Yesterday just out the door

We were married in front of our wonderful friends in Chestertown, Maryland on January 16, 1981. There’s a photo of everyone taken on the courthouse steps I’ll no doubt find when we move, which can’t come soon enough, either. We only had to walk about a block and a half from our apartment in the small Eastern Shore town. My wife wore a beautiful vintage hat and a perfect raccoon coat. I was in tails and a derby, oh my.

Afterwards everyone came back to our apartment and got drunk on champagne. By that time it had started to snow. Our landlord’s wife, one of the guests, needed a ride home to their house in the country and promised us dinner. The roads were slippery as hell as the light started to fade. When I came to the edge of town and turned left heading for Worton, my ’67 Saab started spinning counter-clockwise in the snow, directly in front of oncoming traffic, yet nobody panicked or screamed, being exceedingly well medicated. I remember feeling utterly calm and relaxed as the car slid slowly around in a circle and ended up pointing down the road where we wanted to go, perfectly placed on the right side of the road. I motored on through the gloom as if nothing had happened. We were invincible.

In a few months, we’ll have been twenty years here in New Mexico. We don’t own a home, I have credit card debt, and the last few years have been harder than most. All the losses and dyings, my God, who knew? All I ever wanted to do is live with my darlin’ and be a real man. Since I seem to be real and the lady’s still here, there’s nothing to prove in the end. The eternal boy on his seventh or eighth life with the heart of a lad and the soul of a thief, ambitious as ever and still shedding doubt. It’s never over, you know. We go till we stop.

She says when she first met me, she knew. I wasn’t that sure but fell so hard and never once wanted to leave. Happy anniversary, babe! It was all meant to be. I owe you my life and I’m yours.

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John Hamilton Farr lives in Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” See BUFFALO LIGHTS, TAOS SOUL, ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE, and THE HELEN CHRONICLES. He has been publishing online since 1996 (Zoo Zone, Farr Site, MacFaust, GRACK!, FarrFeed). This JHFARR.COM site is the master online writing archive. Links to all current sites including NFT collections at linktree. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on About page.  

  • Rita January 16, 2019, 7:01 AM

    Blessings to you both. That looks like snuggling weather.

  • JudyinBoston January 16, 2019, 8:10 AM

    Happy Anniversary! And many more.

  • Mesa January 16, 2019, 11:34 AM

    Felicitations on your wedding anniversary! We too married in ‘81. May we all have many more!

  • S. R. Barrett January 16, 2019, 11:43 AM

    Without the generous, forgiving hearts of our wives, we’d all be monsters. Happy anniversary. I trust you’ll make a fuss.

  • Catherine Naylor January 16, 2019, 1:20 PM

    Please keep posting. You’re a great teacher … and you probably don’t know it!
    Love to you,
    Catherine

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