There’s been a lot going on in the world lately, so much so that I completely forgot the most important date in my life: March 23rd. It is the day Charlie and I got married back in 1974.
Today is our 46th wedding anniversary!
Normally, Charlie and I celebrate by going on a special trip. We’ve done that for probably 30 years, many of those times on cruises. One of our favorites occurred a couple of decades ago, on our 25th anniversary, when we did a Panama Canal cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to San Diego. On that trip, on the 23rd of March, we enjoyed a very romantic dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the harbor in Acapulco, Mexico.
We were going to take an April trip this year down to Mazatlan with son Jeff and wife Carol. That would have been our anniversary present to ourselves. However, we canceled last week when flights and borders were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bummer.
So, we’ll settle for a fancy dinner tonight prepared by Chef Craig: New York Steak, Baked Potato, and a fancy dessert.
Hooray for us!
Forty-six years is a long time to do anything, and I can’t imagine anyone else on the planet that I’d rather have spent my time with.
I was a lucky guy to have run into Charlie back in 1973, just after I got out of the Air Force. We were both working at a hospital in Covina, California: she was a vivacious Licensed Vocational Nurse, and I was a Radiologic Technician at night, attending college in the day. Our attraction to each other was pretty much immediate, and it wasn’t too long before I’d met her four young boys and moved in with her.
We got married on the day that I graduated from Cal State L.A.: March 23, 1974…forty-six years ago today.
A lot has changed in that time. Neither of us stayed in the medical field: Charlie transitioned to bookkeeping in the late 1980’s, and, after graduating from college, I started a career in public administration with the County of Riverside. Charlie eventually built a very successful bookkeeping and tax business, and I ended up Deputy C.E.O. of Riverside County.
When we first got together, Charlie was a single Mom, receiving pretty much zero child support from her ex-husband, was working double shifts to make the mortgage on her house, and was receiving Welfare benefits to keep her family alive. I was working part-time in X-ray and getting Veteran’s benefits. So, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together. If it weren’t for the Food Stamps that Charlie got from the Welfare Department, our little family would have starved to death.
Because Charlie had worked hard to keep her mortgage paid-up, when I got the job in Riverside County we were able to use the equity in that house to make a down payment on a new (for us) house in Riverside, California. Our lives improved greatly once we made that move from Covina.
Within a few more years, we had traded that home for a brand-new, two-story tract home, where we raised the boys for ten years until they graduated from high school.
And, as soon as our youngest son, Jonathan, had left the coop, we sold that house and moved into Jack Nicklaus’ brand-new master planned golf community, “Bear Creek”, in Murrieta, California, where we lived for the next thirty years.
Charlie really blossomed in our Bear Creek years. Her business took off, she became very active in the Bear Creek social scene, and she became a leader of the area’s biggest charitable organization, the Assistance League of Temecula Valley. Within a short time, she was elected President of ALTV and was instrumental in the purchase of the organization’s headquarters, a 24,000 s.f. building in Temecula.
Further down the road, Charlie got involved in business networking with an international organization called “LeTip”, and was eventually elected President of the Murrieta group. By that time, she was an important figure in the Temecula Valley business community; everyone knew her, respected her, and liked her. Her bookkeeping and tax service grew like a weed…with no advertising, just word-of-mouth. That’s a pretty nice compliment to her good works in the community.
I am so proud of Charlie’s accomplishments over the years. Number one, she is a very loving mother to her four boys, who are lucky to enjoy that relationship…and they know it. Number two, she is an extremely hard worker who is absolutely dedicated to her clients…and they know it. Number three, she makes friends wherever she goes, and those lucky people have a friend for life…and they know it. And, she is a great teammate…and I know it.
There’s a saying that, “Teamwork makes the dream work”. That is what our marriage has been, and continues to be, all about. We are a great team: each of us has roles, mostly unspoken, and we just do those and whatever else needs to be done. “Team Manning” she calls it.
We are totally different human beings, Charlie and I. Some say that “Opposites attract”, and maybe that’s our formula. Charlie is the social conscience of the team, the one who sends love out in all directions. I am the practical, analytical, planner side of the equation.
We’ve been involved in lots of social gatherings in our married life, where we might walk into a room with 50 or 100 people. Typically, within one-half hour, Charlie would have made 25 new friends, found several new business clients, and helped a number of new acquaintances with referrals to businesses and such. I, on the other hand, would probably spend that time sipping a drink and observing people like Charlie, flitting about, chatting, and making new friends.
I’ve taken on more of a social role since we’ve moved to Mesquite, Nevada. Everyone here is an import from somewhere, and they have their tentacles out, searching for new friends and commonalities. I walk the dogs (one of my tasks) and run into new acquaintances all the time. I think some of Charlie’s friendliness has rubbed off on me. And, the both of us have hosted neighborhood events at our home, allowing us to bond with the community very quickly. We now have several close friends here (in just a year) that we eat with, play cards with, and with whom Charlie can have an occasional “girls’ day”.
Charlie and I have another thing in common: we like to travel. Over the years, we’ve vacationed all over Mexico, Europe, Alaska, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and even spent one day in Morocco. I think we’ve enjoyed more than two dozen cruises. We also owned a timeshare in Mazatlan, Mexico for many years.
One of our ongoing joint ventures is our summertime traveling life in our 40’ Monaco motorhome. We’ve enjoyed our “getaways” for many years and look forward each year (lately) to relaxing on the Oregon and California coasts with our little doggies. We’re hoping that we get to go again this year, although at this point in the Covid-19 drama, traveling to Oregon looks dicey.
Which brings up an intriguing question: Will we be around for our 47th?
Who knows? Who could have predicted that we’d last forty-six years together?
As I reflect on those many years together, it is amazing to me that, with all the changes in our lives, we still love each other just as much. Sure, like every other couple who’ve aged together, the physical love has tailed off, but it has been replaced by a deeper bond, something that can’t even be described.
We’ve become part of each other: like, there’s no Craig anymore, but this being called “Craig-Charlie”. Sort of like Peanut Butter and Jelly, Yin and Yang, and Day and Night…you can’t have one without the other.
Not one woman has ever put the make on me since Charlie and I have been married. It is as if I have a neon sign on my head saying, “Taken”. I don’t wear a wedding ring: I don’t need to, because my countenance says, “Happily married”.
Sure, it’s not an idyllic existence: as older folks, we argue and snap at each, bitch and moan over each other’s bad habits and insensitivities, and get our feelings hurt. We’re not perfect, for sure, and I think that we’re “well aware of that”…which helps diffuse our occasional flare-ups. We’re both at fault when we bark at each other…and we know it. So, once we count to ten, we’re in love again, two human beings ready to take on the next challenge.
It is remarkable that both Charlie’s and my parents’ marriages lasted fifty years. That was certainly not a given, even in their times. They made it work, and must have passed on to us some “togetherness DNA”, or maybe it was an example they set…of how two people can work together toward a common goal.
It’s been an extraordinary adventure, the “Craig and Charlie Show”, now in its 46th season. I am so pleased to have shared it with my favorite co-star, and I’m looking forward to March 23, 2024…which would be our fiftieth anniversary.
As Joe DiMaggio once said, “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”