Of Course I Have a “Trophy Wife” – I Deserve One…

And I Married Her Fifty-One Years Ago Today…

Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen

I met her when she was sixteen.  I was an old, and worldly nineteen year-old, home on Christmas leave with the United States Navy.

My parents had moved from Michigan to California in mid-1962, my Dad selling his Pharmacy interests in Grand Rapids, to head for the High Desert Antelope Valley where the winters weren’t nearly so devastating to my Mother’s bones broken so long ago in an auto accident before I was born.  Indeed, the Doctors were right about the warmth of the American Southwest.  Mom got a new life.

Dad easily got a job with Los Angeles County.  There, with a conversation with co-workers it was determined that one of those had a daughter in a Catholic Girl’s school in Los Angeles who would, also, would be home for the Christmas holidays.  One day, aboard ship, I got the only letter I ever got from my Dad, explaining the plan where I would meet this girl.

And, then I got a letter from the girl…

Uh-Oh…

And then we met…

For those of you that don’t know, when a young man springs loose upon the world in a situation where he doesn’t have to explain to his Mom where he was, and who he was with, doing what, in places like Montego Bay Jamaica, San Juan Puerto Rico, New Orleans Louisiana, Boston Massachusetts, New York City, or any of the Virgin Islands (there are no virgins there), one of the VERY last things on his list is an opportunity to spend time with a REAL virgin, especially from a Catholic Girl’s school.

But Dad kept asking when I was going to go see this girl, who was now home…  Do you know that Catholic School girls wear uniforms?

But not at home.

I resisted kissing her until the second date.

We were married three years later.  She was nineteen, I was a much older twenty-two.  Fortunately, at that age we knew EVERYTHING.

Our parents were discouraging that early marriage, pointing out that we needed to finish college.  But, frankly, we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other, and sex in a car was, well, you know…

So, off we went, to explore life together.

And, Here We Are, Fifty-One Years Later…

What’s the secret to a long marriage.  Damned if I know, for sure.

But some advice for you young guys checking out what’s available for the long haul – take a hard look at what her eyes are telling you.  Pick a fight, see if she can carry her own, or is going to wilt under a little stress..  Because times WILL get tough.

Of course it helps a lot if that look in her eye very often is saying “why do you still have your pants on?”  

Uh-Oh…

Stay tuned…

Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen