This is a speech Ily and Havana's grandparents asked me to write and give at their recent 50th Wedding Anniversary.
....for posterity
My name is Rob, I am married to Mary and Richard’s fourth creation, Karen.
I guess I’ve been in an in-law/outlaw in the family for about 13 years.
Mary and Richard asked me to retell the story tonight of the moment when their relationship began. I am kind of familiar with public speaking through my union activities. I’m used to adlibbing a speech, but I wrote this down as Mary and Richard wanted to be able to run this by their lawyer first.
So here goes.
Firstly, the brick. I have never brought a brick to a party before. What’s more unusual is that I’ve never been given a brick by my father-in-law to bring to a party before. But here it is. We’ll get to the brick in a minute.
Toward the end of the decade of the 1950’s, Mary and Richard were both members of the Catholic Social Club. What was the Catholic Social Club? Under the auspices of religion and with the social lubricant of wine and beer single people, Irish, Portugese, Italians over 21 found partners. It was a wholesome version of what would today be called partying.
Mary had noticed Richard. Richard had noticed Mary. But it was to be at least two years before their first date.
Richard asked Mary several times to go on a date and each time she sheepishly shrugged “No.” She felt Richard, in her words, “was a bit of a player.”
And even though he’s now 75, you can see Richard probably was once a good looking lad, but he denies he was ever a player. Just because he drove a Thunderbird, a hot blue, two-seater, that didn’t make him a player. Just because he asked a lot of girls out, we shouldn’t narrowly define him as a player. However if you were to ask him why he kept a cushion on his passenger seat, the issue becomes more cloudy. To quote Richard, “the girls would ask what the cushion was for. I’d say, look: I have bucket seats and a stick shift, the cushion is there so we can get closer.”
That’s a player, even by modern standards.
So for a couple of years they’d cross paths.
They went to the same dances. And this is how it worked in the late 1950s. Someone organized a dance, they sent a letter in the mail to the President of the Catholic Social Club, then when their next meeting came around, the President in turn announced it and then through word and mouth people would come along. It somewhat slower than organizing a Facebook event page. But it worked, albeit at a slower pace. It was a different time, a different world.
Anyway that’s just for background.
Mary’d turned him down Richard’s casual offers to go out with him until June 1961.
At that time one of Mary’s best friends was about to leave the Social Club. The only way to leave the club was death or marriage. Her friend was getting married. As a bridesmaid, Mary was at the Wedding Rehearsal dinner and had got in her car to drive home to West Mckinley. She was a couple of blocks into the drive and realized she needed to pee. Going back to the rehearsal dinner site seemed a bit embarrassing so she decided to stop at the local bowling alley.
It was the Mid State Bowl at Clinton and Webber.
As she walked in, she noticed that playboy with his friends and went over for a chat. Then she headed off to the bathroom and left.
This was an important moment for Richard in particular.
One of his bowling friends, who was not a great guy, turned to Richard and said, “wow, that Mary is a good looker, I’m gonna ask her out!”
Richard was invited to the wedding the next day and spent much of the night thinking about this scenario. In the morning he resolved to get to Mary first and so at the Wedding Reception, he walked up to Mary, stuck up a conversation and by the end of the evening he’d asked her out and she’d said, yes.
So maybe it was Mary needing a pee that brought them together or Richard trying to save Mary from a bad guy, but whatever the trigger was, their relationship has worked.
On December 8th 1961 Richard showed up at the old farmhouse on West McKinley with a ring. He knocked on the kitchen door. Mary opened the old screen door and there he was with his arm outstretched and an open ring box in it.
About 10 years ago Mary and Richard were in their sixties. They were driving back to the old Vasconcellos farm on West McKinley, their home together, at that time, for some 40 years. The home where they’d reared six children, all of whom were now grown and had left home. They were now grandparents. As they drove home that night, they passed Clinton and Webber, the spot where their relationship as a couple had begun.
It was being torn down to make way for something, someone somewhere, thought was something better. They stopped and took in the moment. They both got out and asked one of the workers for a couple of bricks.
So this is one of those bricks.
It’s a brick from another time, another world. It’s a brick from a place which led to a million different events, including me meeting my wife, Karen and everyone being here tonight.
