Essay: How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

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How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

How a Republican lawyer helped me meet my liberal wife

My sweet wife and I were sitting on the front porch swing, reading the Sunday paper and enjoying the cool breeze of the early morning. It still amazes me how many things we don’t know about each other, even after all these years. She was reading the obituaries. I knew something was up when she lowered the paper into her lap and just stared off into the distance. Eventually she explained, “I almost married a Republican lawyer.”

Being my usual smart-ass self, I quipped, “Yeah, that would have been tough. Lawyers like to argue, and they especially like to win arguments. And, you can’t argue rationally with a Republican.” Fortunately, my beloved knows that, once I get the smart-ass out of my system, it’s safe to move on as if nothing had happened. She finished her story.

“Someone I dated in high school died. I might have married him. It turns out he became a lawyer.” I put my arm across her shoulder. “We were actually pretty serious for a while, and then I called it off.” She leaned her head back and rolled it toward my shoulder. “You know what a liberal hippie chick I was back then, with protest marches and folk songs. Well, he invited me to go with him to a Young Republicans Club meeting. So, we started comparing ideas and, pretty soon that was it.”

Well, that’s about it here too. When you’re been married for a long time, some of the best things are the quiet, delicate, unexpected joys that land on you, like the cool flutter of a butterfly, for just a moment. I kissed her gently on the head and told her that I loved her. And then I just stared off into the distance for a while, surprised that I would find myself so suddenly grateful to a Republican lawyer.

Poem: The Pledge

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The Pledge

Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Our young man vows his eternal admiration, devotion and delight to whomever he might fall in love with. Yeah, you say that now...

The Pledge

Who can say the worth of a day,

Or put a value on life.

When happiness grows more than anyone knows,

While I’m with you, my love and my wife.

The poets would praise you in immortal verse

For others to marvel and read

How one woman and man were so perfectly matched

As to always fulfill their mate’s need.

Stargazers would honor new stars with your name

And white clouds would paint it on skies.

And I would whisper it under my breath

As I gazed deep into your blue eyes.

I love you my darling, eternal delight.

You’ve become so much more than a friend.

We’ve united in flesh, heart, and mind for all time.

A union that won’t breach or bend.

                                              February 22, 1972

 

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The Hanging Offense

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

His wife has undertaken a new hobby and involved him in foraging for materials. What could be better than an activity that brings the whole family together? What happens when a patient, tolerant, and supportive husband reaches his limit?

The Hanging Offense

Don and Bev were an unlikely couple. He was as tall as she was short. He always knew which direction was north and she always knew when he didn’t, actually. He was a disorderly neat-freak to her orderly clutter. They both claimed to have a personally satisfying “piling system.” They had learned to compromise where consensus was impossible and bicker gently when personal territory needed defending.

Don and Bev had met rather late-ish in life. They were already past their prime when they met. Let us say that they were on the trailing edge of homemaking, child-raising, and career-building, They were both divorced after almost three decades of difficult first marriages. They were both lonely but skeptical of ever trying again. They had both given up on finding someone who met their standards – they both quoted Groucho Marx: “I would never join a club that would accept me as a member.” Naturally, they fell deliriously and deliciously in love – for better and for worse.

And so, it eventually happened that Bev took an interest in the art of rug-making. Don was amused but tolerant. Lord knows, Bev had been patient when he thought he was going to learn to play the piano. Did I say rug-making? To be specific, it turns out that Bev started ordering books on rug hooking and, after a while, bought a machine for cutting wool fabric into narrow strips. Don trotted out the pro-forma puns about her becoming a hooker and stripper and Bev offered that pained little smile that told him that yes, he was clever but

Story: Going to see Jesse

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Going to see Jesse

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee (also included in: Honoring My Father: Coming to Terms).

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

Honoring My Father:
Coming to Terms

This is an (almost completely) true story about old people in love. It is given a stream-of-consciousness treatment that reflects the tender tedium of elder care. It is only right to tell you up front that, by the end, they both die and that most early readers wanted to reach for a tissue and a good friend. 

I was writing and editing for a publishing company in St. George, Utah when they ran out of money to make full payroll. When I told my parents back in Missouri about the development, Mom got on the line and said, “David, we need you here.” My Uncle Ed was eighty-six and had just had hip replacement surgery. He was about to be released from the hospital; could I move back and take care of him in his home?

Providing home care develops a predictable and cadenced routine. Ed’s wife, my father’s sister, had dementia and was confined to “Pine Manor,” a nearby nursing home. I would take Ed to go to see Jessie most days. Going to see Jessie was an integral part of our Sisyphean life together. It was more than a routine; it was an obligatory rite, a necessary commemoration, like giving thanks before a meal or putting flowers on a grave.