It was October 20, 1969, and autumn had come to Georgia. The hot days of summer were behind us, and autumn’s cooler breeze gently moved through the pines on the campus of the little suburban college where Mary Ann was attending classes five days per week. It was a Monday, and I was meeting her for lunch promptly at one o’clock.
The menu would be limited to the three boxes of Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips which were steaming in the sack on the front seat next to me as I turned into the college parking lot. Mary Ann had seen my car as I’d navigated my way through the college’s main gate, and she was there to meet me when I pulled my car into a parking space alongside a particularly towering pine. What a beautiful day it was, and what a beautiful girl with whom to spend it!
With both the driver and passenger doors open wide, our drinks on the dashboard and WQXI blasting from the dashboard speaker, we were talking, laughing, joking, eating and having a picnic there in my car, a full fledged private party right there in a public parking lot. If anyone else was on the campus that day, I failed to notice them. All of my attention was focused on the girl sitting next to me.
At the top of the hour the radio news said that developments in the Sharon Tate murders were bringing investigators closer to the killers, that the Soviet Union had offered its own plan for bringing peace to the Israelis and Palestinians, and that the testimony of a sheriff’s deputy had shed new light on Ted Kennedy’s role in the untimely death of Mary Jo Kopechne. These stories were important, but not nearly as important to me as whether or not Mary Ann liked the fried fish and malt vinegar I had brought her.
Okay, batter fried fish and malt vinegar may not sound like anything too special, but that’s because it’s 2009. Things that were kind of special in 1969 have become commonplace and blase to the jaded Americans of this day and age. Our picnic fare that day was Mary Ann’s first encounter with the staple of British noonday tables, and the first hot lunch she‘d had in some time. There were no food facilities at the college yet (the school was new and unfinished), and Mary Ann had bitterly complained for several days of finding nothing to eat there. I had hoped to win some points with her by bringing her food. Food was always dear to Mary Ann, and I hoped to become dear as well.
Of the three boxes of fish and french fries, Mary Ann ate two. She worked her way through four mini-cups of malt vinegar, a large Dr. Pepper and a peach fried pie, and when all was done she looked into the empty sack to be sure that nothing had been overlooked.
After confirming that the sack was, indeed, empty, she turned to me, looked into my eyes, and I could see satisfaction on her face. She was unmistakably pleased, and this pleased me. I had done well in bringing the sacks of steaming whitefish, and I would be rewarded with words of appreciation, a boost in her regard for me, and if I was really lucky, my reward might even include a kiss—one of those trademark smiles that I lived for and a peck on the cheek.
Whether it came to her instinctively or was the product of training and practice, Mary Ann meted out to me a measured response and one calculated to encourage my further thoughtfulness. It was a response which should be taught to every American diplomat and State Department envoy into whose hands our foreign policy is entrusted.
“I was thinking of rewarding you for bringing me such a fine meal and sharing such a fun time, Prentice,” Mary Ann said, “but I have decided to first wait and see what you bring me tomorrow!”
What genius this girl possessed. In one stroke she had told me that she’d liked the fish, appreciated my efforts to bring her lunch, enjoyed my company, and encouraged me to see her again the following day. I felt like a million bucks, and she had ensured that I’d be there tomorrow with fish and chips or better. A masterstroke of diplomacy.
Now that I have told you this story, I am not quite sure why I chose it for today’s post. There is a lesson to be learned from the story, but it is bit more difficult to draw that I had anticipated when I wrote the first sentence. So, I will dispense with my effort to artfully lead the reader to self discovery of the story’s message. Instead, I will just plainly state it. So, here it is:
I love my wife, and I enjoy telling her that I do. From time to time, like this time, I tell her that I love her in the posts that I make to this blog. Over the past forty years Mary Ann has ended each day with an anticipation in her heart of what I would bring to her tomorrow, and the encouragement to me that my gift never goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Every day I bring her all of my love, and every day she ensures that I will bring it again tomorrow.
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I love your blog. When I discovered it I thought it was a political site but now I realize that it is a married couple writing about a variety of things that are interesting to them and interesting to read. The most interesting part of this blog is how very real and open Mary Ann and Prentice are about the many things they write about including their very long romance. The romance I think is the best part! I don’t know either of them but feel like I do from reading the blog. God bless you both and I look forward to reading every day.