If my daddy was still alive, (he died at age fifty-nine, the age I am now) he and my mother would have been married sixty some odd years today. I think it's sixty-two, but don't hold me to it.
Of course, that immediately begs the question: "Why the heck would anybody get married on April Fool's Day?"
I've asked that question, of course.
"We just wanted to get married on the first Sunday of April and never thought about it."
Family.
They were already in their twenties. Mother is an only child and Daddy was the baby and the only boy, so they were both, shall we say, a little spoiled?
They got married in secret and both went home to their respective parents.
Did I mention they were in their twenties?
I think Mother finally got up the nerve to tell when she had a best friend spending the night with her.
Did I mention she was in her twenties?
My mother's father disliked my daddy. Intensely. Which, my mother openly admits, is one of the reasons she married him.
Did I mention they were in their - oh, never mind.
Daddy was a rascal. He was rebellious. He got kicked out of high school, went to Young Harris College where he got kicked out again, for fighting.
He smoked, he drank, he gambled.
He was mischievous and funny and couldn't hold onto a dollar if his life depended on it.
My mother, because of that, became a secretive money hoarder. I mean, it wasn't, like, stacked up to the ceiling with only a little walk way to get through the house. I mean, she'd look you right in the eye and say, "I don't have a penny," when you knew good and well she had a few hundred stashed in her wallet.
She still does that, sorta. Yet she is very generous too.
Back to their early years: Both sets of parents 'helped' them make it in this old world. Which was beneficial to me, who was the only grandchild on my mother's side and the only one in town on my daddy's side. I got lots of fierce love and was as happy at one's house as I was the other.
Their marriage was tumultuous at times, and as I grew older, I hated some of the things my daddy did, embarrassing me a lot. There were times I wanted my mother to divorce my daddy.
Then he mellowed, she mellowed, and they spent the last several years really enjoying each other, I think.
He had to go and get sick. And who wouldn't, the way he abused his body for so long?
So he 'up and died' at age fifty-nine.
He never saw his two granddaughters. He left his grandson, whom he adored, a three year old with only vague memories of him.
The price we pay for a misspent youth, as they say.
I still miss him, of course. And mother still talks about him. I guess she wonders what it would have been like to still have him by her side.
Ah, well.
He'd probably still be playing practical jokes, she'd still be broke.
But after the sun went down, they'd still have each other.
Today may be the fool's day, and I reckon we all need to recognize that. Because after all, aren't we all a fool for something - or someone - at least once in our lives?
Happy April Fool's Day.
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