Got a letter from a reader the other day – a Ms. C. Wymerotte of New York City, NY – inquiring after The Lovely Mrs. Taylor. I get a lot of mail like this; folks wanting to know if she’s real (yes), how long we’ve been married (15 years, last July), and whether she reads my column and thinks it’s funny (no, on both counts).
Ms. Wymerotte wanted to know how Mrs. T and I met.
Since Big Apple residents live life in the fast lane, and I hate to disappoint, I originally considered making something up; something interesting, romantic, exciting. But real life is rarely like that. Real life – as John Lennon put it – is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.
I was making other plans the night I met The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, who at the time was still known as “Julie.”
It was a Saturday night, and my little weekend band was playing a gig at a roadhouse north of Grand Rapids, the kind of place that smelled of old beer, Walmart perfume and deep fried chicken. The air was redolent with cigarette smoke; from the stage, I could barely make out the other side of the room.
Good ol’ boys in worn denim and girls with frosted pink lips jostled elbow-to-elbow on the dance floor, the girls dashing back to their warm Bud Lites and fuzzy navels whenever we threatened to play a slow tune.
We wrapped second set with a James Brown cover, clicked on the taped break music and worked our way through the crowd to the bar.
My buds grabbed their drinks and bee-lined to the band table, where waited bored wives and excited girlfriends.
I was solo, so I stood at the bar chatting with Danny the bartender, stirring my gin and tonic, trying to look cool, failing, and hoping against hope that some sweet young thang would mosey my way and say hello.
I’d had my eye on a cute redhead who had spent most of the previous set dancing in front of the stage, always a good sign. The redhead, however, now seemed to have her eye (and most of the rest of her) on a pumped-up dude in a cowboy hat and wife-beater T-shirt. I had to admit the shirt, hat and redhead all looked good on him.
I was turning back to the bar when a tall, willowy girl appeared at my side. It might have been the first time in my life I noticed the color of a woman’s eyes. Pale blue fading to grey, a November sky. Wavy chestnut hair spilled over her shoulders like water running downhill.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey,” I said, stirring my drink, shooting for nonchalance, resolutely ignoring the sudden weakness in my knees.
“You guys are good,” she said.
We were not, but I said “Thanks” anyway.
“Do you know any AC/DC?” she asked.
We didn’t. Nobody in the band could sing the high notes. But I figured a girl this young and naïve wouldn’t know squat about AC/DC; she was just trying to make conversation a guy my age might be able to relate to.
“Now, how could we do any AC/DC?” I said, as if explaining one-digit addition to a third-grader. “We don’t even have a keyboard player.”
Neither does AC/DC, but I figured she wouldn’t know that.
She did. She looked at me as if she’d found me stuck to the bottom of her shoe upon leaving the restroom. Then without a word, she turned and walked back to her table. She was sitting with her older sister. She leaned over and said something to her sister and they both laughed.
Years later, I learned what that “something” was: “That guy is the biggest (expletive deleted) I’ve ever met.”
What can I say? Mrs. Taylor was an excellent judge of character even then.
For my part, I thought she was an effete, stuck-up little princess. But that didn’t make my knees any less weak or her eyes any less blue.
A week later, we were dating. Opposites and all that. It took a long time to get past our initial impressions of each other, which were partly right, mostly wrong.
And as the years passed, our rough edges wore away, like two pieces of cracked marble colliding in a rock tumbler, until at last nothing much remains but smooth, beautiful stone.
Oh, we’re still opposites, I suppose, but lordy, how we do attract.
That’s my “how we met” story. Now, you tell me yours. Send your tales of courtship to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429 or via e-mail to mtaylor325@gmail.com. I’ll include the best of them in a future column! More Reality Check online at http://realitycheck.shoutpost.com.
Ms. Wymerotte wanted to know how Mrs. T and I met.
Since Big Apple residents live life in the fast lane, and I hate to disappoint, I originally considered making something up; something interesting, romantic, exciting. But real life is rarely like that. Real life – as John Lennon put it – is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.
I was making other plans the night I met The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, who at the time was still known as “Julie.”
It was a Saturday night, and my little weekend band was playing a gig at a roadhouse north of Grand Rapids, the kind of place that smelled of old beer, Walmart perfume and deep fried chicken. The air was redolent with cigarette smoke; from the stage, I could barely make out the other side of the room.
Good ol’ boys in worn denim and girls with frosted pink lips jostled elbow-to-elbow on the dance floor, the girls dashing back to their warm Bud Lites and fuzzy navels whenever we threatened to play a slow tune.
We wrapped second set with a James Brown cover, clicked on the taped break music and worked our way through the crowd to the bar.
My buds grabbed their drinks and bee-lined to the band table, where waited bored wives and excited girlfriends.
I was solo, so I stood at the bar chatting with Danny the bartender, stirring my gin and tonic, trying to look cool, failing, and hoping against hope that some sweet young thang would mosey my way and say hello.
I’d had my eye on a cute redhead who had spent most of the previous set dancing in front of the stage, always a good sign. The redhead, however, now seemed to have her eye (and most of the rest of her) on a pumped-up dude in a cowboy hat and wife-beater T-shirt. I had to admit the shirt, hat and redhead all looked good on him.
I was turning back to the bar when a tall, willowy girl appeared at my side. It might have been the first time in my life I noticed the color of a woman’s eyes. Pale blue fading to grey, a November sky. Wavy chestnut hair spilled over her shoulders like water running downhill.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey,” I said, stirring my drink, shooting for nonchalance, resolutely ignoring the sudden weakness in my knees.
“You guys are good,” she said.
We were not, but I said “Thanks” anyway.
“Do you know any AC/DC?” she asked.
We didn’t. Nobody in the band could sing the high notes. But I figured a girl this young and naïve wouldn’t know squat about AC/DC; she was just trying to make conversation a guy my age might be able to relate to.
“Now, how could we do any AC/DC?” I said, as if explaining one-digit addition to a third-grader. “We don’t even have a keyboard player.”
Neither does AC/DC, but I figured she wouldn’t know that.
She did. She looked at me as if she’d found me stuck to the bottom of her shoe upon leaving the restroom. Then without a word, she turned and walked back to her table. She was sitting with her older sister. She leaned over and said something to her sister and they both laughed.
Years later, I learned what that “something” was: “That guy is the biggest (expletive deleted) I’ve ever met.”
What can I say? Mrs. Taylor was an excellent judge of character even then.
For my part, I thought she was an effete, stuck-up little princess. But that didn’t make my knees any less weak or her eyes any less blue.
A week later, we were dating. Opposites and all that. It took a long time to get past our initial impressions of each other, which were partly right, mostly wrong.
And as the years passed, our rough edges wore away, like two pieces of cracked marble colliding in a rock tumbler, until at last nothing much remains but smooth, beautiful stone.
Oh, we’re still opposites, I suppose, but lordy, how we do attract.
That’s my “how we met” story. Now, you tell me yours. Send your tales of courtship to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429 or via e-mail to mtaylor325@gmail.com. I’ll include the best of them in a future column! More Reality Check online at http://realitycheck.shoutpost.com.
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