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Hernando Today

When A Life And Wife Become One

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JOSEPH KLOCK Klockwork

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 8, 2008

In my earlier life, the Reader's Digest frequently gave me emotional indigestion with its periodic threats of global warming, planetary freezing, famines, pestilences, epidemics, international calamities and a plethora of other scourges, most of which came to no greater semblance of fruition than the promises exchanged in a shipboard romance.

Aside: I salute a long-ago satirical publication entitled "The Reader's Dijest," (sic) which featured an article headed, "The Liver - Vicious And Depraved Organ."

One of the real Digest's more interesting features was "The Most Unforgettable Character I've Met," which memorialized important people in contemporary history.

During my own fourscore and almost two years on this third planet from the sun, I've personally encountered one past president of the USA, a few candidates for that questionably attractive job and a number of other celebrities in politics, mass media, entertainment and business. These included some that were forgettable and/or regrettable in my (occasionally) humble opinion.

The most remarkable individual, however, in my past experience never made it to an international Who's Who, the Fortune 500, the cover of a national magazine, or a leather-bound encyclopedia, and is given relatively short shrift in Googleland.

She tops my list, though, in terms of memorability, with nobody even in a distant second place.

Regular readers of this column (bless your masochistic hearts) have come to identify her as Firstwife, a title conferred on her by historical fact as well as the conferror's unreasonable and selfish wish to deny her complete job security, even after 60 years of tenure.

She began life as Mary Dorothy, a name of which she was much less than faintly fond, and which early gave way to Mary Dot, to which she now responds, and under which identity she carved a niche in real estate history (inter alia, breaking through the glass ceiling in a national realty organization).

Just a few of those todays ago, Firstwife/Mary Dot observed her 80th birthday in a mixed mood of horror and disbelief, while her eight begats, 19 grandbegats and seven great grands celebrated an occasion which would not have come to pass without her procreational proclivity.

I met her first when we were sub-teens in a family summer retreat. She wasn't exactly the girl next door, but there was only one intervening bungalow, so we got to know each other quite well.

She has since told me that I had then forecast our eventual marriage and promised to buy her a beautiful horse farm.

The second of these bold predictions didn't materialize, but her equine fantasy is being realized through the daughter (Opus 8) at whose Andalusian breeding ranch the aforementioned "80th" was observed/celebrated.

To make a long story longer, our puppy love progressed through teenage disdain and a tepid wartime correspondence to a homecoming epiphany of attraction and commitment.

There ensued a marriage that has seen better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health, snickers, sneers, sobs and, through it all a love and friendship that still flourishes, nourishes and grows.

She is the one person I most want to impress, to help, to comfort, to please, to amuse, to pamper and just to be with at quiet times.

She has not merely contributed to the blessings I've enjoyed, but has made just about all of them possible.

She is, was and always will be - in my mind and heart - what being memorable is all about.

Freelance wordworker Joe Klock, Sr. ( joeklock@aol.com) is a winter Floridian who summers in New Hampshire. More of his "Klockwork," can be found at www.joeklock.com.

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