The big pig
As Jo and I celebrate our 40th year together I often find myself inside my head, reflecting on the story we have penned together. All our different chapters and the characters both created and developed within. There are so many required elements to having a good marriage, all equal in importance. Looking back, and to be honest, our story started with lust, as all I knew of this stranger was what the eye had to offer. A beautiful girl across the room, I needed to know who the blond in the blue dress was. She wasn’t at all interested in me, so I waited another 365 days before we met again.
Once I got to talk to her, the lust was matched by intrigue…I needed to know more, within days of our second meeting I knew I was in love, which was really bad timing as I was leaving on a three-month deployment within a week. In that three months, dozens and dozens of letters were exchanged…old school style. I feel sad for kids today, most of which will never know the thrill of receiving a perfume laced letter at a crowded mail call while at sea! We called a perfumed letter “a smeller” back in the day and the ships postal clerk always announced them out loud. It was through these letters, that I still have today, that still smell good, that respect blossomed from her loyalty and kindness.
I felt that it was important to share all the factual sappiness above before I shared this…we fight well together too. Like any couple we get on each other’s nerves, sometimes I am wrong, sometimes Jo. Sometimes things just seem to build up where we are just looking for a fight, no matter the subject…now is a good time to introduce the big pig!
We were living at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Our kids were small, our budget tight and our family van bulky. We had taken the kids to an October pumpkin farm kind of thing. The sky was blue, the temperature outside was mild, in all aspects it was a beautiful day. And then it happened, we passed a farm field that contained a single pig. I commented that it was a big pig…everything went south from there.
My bride of almost six years simply remarked (with a snarky/authoritative voice I may add) “That’s not a big pig!” I don’t know why I didn’t drop it there and then, but I decided to return fire…questioning her time living the farm (knowing the answer was zero), her level of Swine-ology…probably even her eyesight. I have no idea from where it came, but to my surprise and not more than a second later Joann had a knife in her hand, waving it from side to side as if trying to decide where to cut! OK, that last part didn’t happen…but cartoon knifes were coming out of her eyes!
As if watching a tennis match, we went back and forth until we were no longer talking to each other. It was our biggest fight since playing the game Scruples with friends on Adak Island three years before. To this day we won’t play that game. Later that evening we started talking, shortly thereafter we were laughing trying to answer the question “What was that all about?”
Since that day in late 1991, the big pig comes up constantly and always in jest. “That’s not a big pig” is said aloud every time a pig sighting occurs. A reminder of a time, a fight where we both believe we were still right to this day. Comfortable in the knowledge that you can still love and respect someone who doesn’t know shit about pigs!
This photo was taken while touring the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland on 28 October of 2022. We both agreed that it was not a big pig (a sign of maturity) but for the both of us, it was the prettiest pig we had ever seen!
The big pig
As Jo and I celebrate our 40th year together I often find myself inside my head, reflecting on the story we have penned together. All our different chapters and the characters both created and developed within. There are so many required elements to having a good marriage, all equal in importance. Looking back, and to be honest, our story started with lust, as all I knew of this stranger was what the eye had to offer. A beautiful girl across the room, I needed to know who the blond in the blue dress was. She wasn’t at all interested in me, so I waited another 365 days before we met again.
Once I got to talk to her, the lust was matched by intrigue…I needed to know more, within days of our second meeting I knew I was in love, which was really bad timing as I was leaving on a three-month deployment within a week. In that three months, dozens and dozens of letters were exchanged…old school style. I feel sad for kids today, most of which will never know the thrill of receiving a perfume laced letter at a crowded mail call while at sea! We called a perfumed letter “a smeller” back in the day and the ships postal clerk always announced them out loud. It was through these letters, that I still have today, that still smell good, that respect blossomed from her loyalty and kindness.
I felt that it was important to share all the factual sappiness above before I shared this…we fight well together too. Like any couple we get on each other’s nerves, sometimes I am wrong, sometimes Jo. Sometimes things just seem to build up where we are just looking for a fight, no matter the subject…now is a good time to introduce the big pig!
We were living at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Our kids were small, our budget tight and our family van bulky. We had taken the kids to an October pumpkin farm kind of thing. The sky was blue, the temperature outside was mild, in all aspects it was a beautiful day. And then it happened, we passed a farm field that contained a single pig. I commented that it was a big pig…everything went south from there.
My bride of almost six years simply remarked (with a snarky/authoritative voice I may add) “That’s not a big pig!” I don’t know why I didn’t drop it there and then, but I decided to return fire…questioning her time living the farm (knowing the answer was zero), her level of Swine-ology…probably even her eyesight. I have no idea from where it came, but to my surprise and not more than a second later Joann had a knife in her hand, waving it from side to side as if trying to decide where to cut! OK, that last part didn’t happen…but cartoon knifes were coming out of her eyes!
As if watching a tennis match, we went back and forth until we were no longer talking to each other. It was our biggest fight since playing the game Scruples with friends on Adak Island three years before. To this day we won’t play that game. Later that evening we started talking, shortly thereafter we were laughing trying to answer the question “What was that all about?”
Since that day in late 1991, the big pig comes up constantly and always in jest. “That’s not a big pig” is said aloud every time a pig sighting occurs. A reminder of a time, a fight where we both believe we were still right to this day. Comfortable in the knowledge that you can still love and respect someone who doesn’t know shit about pigs!
This photo was taken while touring the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland on 28 October of 2022. We both agreed that it was not a big pig (a sign of maturity) but for the both of us, it was the prettiest pig we had ever seen!