Tag Archives: marriage

local news

One of those ‘firsts’ awaits

A sad day awaits me in the morning, as the day will unfold without my bride alongside me to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

This will be one of those “firsts” I mentioned in an earlier blog post. It will mark the first wedding anniversary since I lost Kathy Anne to the savage form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

I am not going to belabor the reason for my sadness. Instead, I am going to convey a message I received at church this morning from a gentleman who lost his wife to Alzheimer’s disease about four years ago. He and I have become friends, to be sure.

He told me not to “wallow” in my sadness. Instead, he offered a suggestion that I remember all the fun we had during our 50-plus years as husband and wife.

And, yes, we had a hell of a great ride. We saw almost the entire United States of America, several countries in Europe and Asia. We ventured to the Holy Land together. We laughed out loud for so much of it. Yes, we endured some pain together through the loss of family members, but the pain subsided and we returned quickly to those things that gave us joy.

We watched our sons become great men and cheered the successes they enjoyed as they have made their own marks on this world.

I will remember fondly all of that … and something the preacher told me prior to us taking our marriage vows. The ceremony, he said, would last just 22 minutes. “It will be over before you know it,” he said.

He was right. It was the quickest 22 minutes of my life. I’m glad it ended so rapidly, because the next 51 years were a riot!

local news

Just hold hands, that’s all

We would get this question occasionally, particularly after we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in the late summer of 2021.

It went something like this: What is the secret to your marriage success? My bride had a quick answer and it was the correct answer, at least in her astute and intuitive mind. “We just hold hands,” she would say. The question was often posed in the context of our modern society that produces so many failed marriages.

Hmm. Then came the follow up: How does that help?

She would say that it didn’t matter how we were feeling at that moment, whether she was mad at me or we had some disagreement, holding hands kept us close together and enabled us to talk through whatever differences we were experiencing.

To be sure, Kathy Anne and I really liked each other’s company. I can say that without any equivocation. For certain, I enjoyed being in her company. She said she enjoyed being with me … so I would take her at her word.

The hand-holding was something we did naturally. It was never contrived or was something we had to remember to do. We would take walks around our neighborhood with Toby the Puppy and we would reach instinctively for the each other’s hand. Off we would go, traipsing around the ‘hood as the Puppy would seek to mark every weed, hydrant, lamp post he could find.

Friends would comment frequently, telling us that “it is just so cool to see you holding hands” as we walked along heading to nowhere in particular.

We didn’t get into prolonged arguments. But occasionally, as every married couple has experienced, there would be a bump along the way.

Through it all, we kept in touch — quite literally — simply by holding hands.

I offer this as a mini-seminar on maintaining a successful marriage. It helps — at least from my standpoint — that I found the girl of my dreams quite suddenly and unexpectedly one January day in college.

We enjoyed one fabulous journey for 51 glorious years.

We held hands.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news, religious news

Infidelity can scar for life

You see this circumstance crop up far more often than politicians care to admit. A pol declares himself or herself to be a “devout Christian” who wears his or her faith on both sleeves and plastered on the forehead.

Then their personal life becomes the subject of tittering and gossip.

That’s you, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor “What’s Her Name” Greene, the lunatic Republican from Georgia. She only recently declared herself to be a Christian nationalist. By golly, she’s devoted to the Bible, its teachings.

But … oops! Now comes word that her husband of 28 years is divorcing her. Their marriage is “irretrievably broken,” he said in papers filed in divorce court.

Oh, but there’s more. Reports are flying all over the place that Rep. What’s Her Name had a fling or two with men who aren’t her husband. I haven’t heard any categorical denial coming from the Georgia flamethrower. What am I — and others — to surmise? One notion might be that the reports of her extramarital tumbles are true.

So, here you go. Politicians who make these proclamations about their faith and, presumably, the sacred vows they take to their spouse open themselves up to even greater scrutiny when their lives take these sudden turns.

Ya gotta walk the walk, Rep. What’s Her Name … not just talk about it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Yep, we are an inspiration

My wife and I are inspirations.

We inspired at least one young man. How do I know that? He told us so this afternoon.

Part of our daily constitutional, weather permitting, involves us walking with Toby the Puppy through our Princeton, Texas, neighborhood. The weather allowed it today, so off we trekked.

We turned the corner and started walking north. A young man drove up in his pickup. He stopped his truck and said the following: “You inspire me.”

I responded: “Oh, really? How’s that?” The gentleman said he enjoys seeing us walking through the ‘hood “holding hands.” 

We both chuckled. The young man said he has been married for 10 years and he hopes that “when I get to be your age that we’re still holding hands.”

I lifted my right hand that was clasping my wife’s left hand and told him, “Well, you know, this is part of our formula” for a lengthy marriage. We told him we’ve been married for 48 years.

He shook his head … I am presuming because he is impressed that we’ve been together for that length of time.

We wished him well; he returned the same to us.

I love it when we can inspire someone with such a simple gesture. Who’da thunk it?

local news

This ‘life experience’ will last forever

I am not inclined to publish blog posts such as what I am about to post today, but given that I note that High Plains Blogger includes “life experience” among its topics, I thought I would share this experience with you.

It goes like this.

I had just returned from the Army the previous summer of 1970. I enrolled in college, wanting to restart the civilian life that was interrupted by induction into the military two years earlier, and which included a tour in Vietnam.

One day I was sitting in the student union, taking a break from my studies. Then I saw this girl. I decided in that moment that I wanted to meet this young woman. As luck would have it, that opportunity presented itself in short order.

We found ourselves sitting at a table with a mutual acquaintance. He amused us both. We made eye contact, winking and chuckling at the stories this fellow was telling.

I introduced myself. She did as well. We liked each other right away.

We dated for a time. Our relationship matured and developed rapidly. It evolved quickly into a loving relationship. Then we decided to get married. The marriage occurred on Sept. 4, 1971 in a small Presbyterian Church in southeast Portland, Ore.

The preacher who married us told us the ceremony would take 22 minutes. It was — dare I say it — the quickest 22 minutes of my life. 

Just like that, we were husband and wife. Our sons would come along soon.

It has been the greatest ride imaginable. Neither of us could have imagined the places we would see, the things we would do, the path our combined life would take.

It all happened 48 years ago.

What is the life experience I learned? I tell young men a simple fact, which is that you shouldn’t go looking for the girl of your dreams. She will appear when you least expect it.

I am living, breathing proof of that fundamental truth.

Happy anniversary, Kathy Anne.

legal news

Tumult unlikely to let up

gay marriage

It’s been a tumultuous past few days, right?

The Confederate flag has come under intense fire; then the Supreme Court steps in and — in order — affirms the Affordable Care Act and then legalizes gay marriage.

Let the arguments ensue.

As for the gay marriage issue, I want to make only this point.

Those who oppose the court’s ruling as a threat to traditional marriage ought to take a deep breath and wait.

They need to wait to see — and this will take time — if the rate of traditional weddings drops off; or if the rate of traditional divorce increases.

I suspect we’ll see an increase in gay marriages across the land, as same-sex couples now are able to marry openly — and legally. Would that increase signify a disproportionate representation of the number of Americans who happen to be gay? That remains to be seen as well. I continue to believe the percentage of gay people is as it’s always been; we’ve seen a spike in the percentage of those who have “come out.”

I only can speak for myself and — on this matter — for my wife. Neither of us feels threatened by the court decision. We’ve been at this marriage game for going on 44 years. It’s worked pretty well for us.

In that regard, I’m not yet willing to concede that the court majority’s ruling is going to trigger an avalanche of divorces among heterosexual couples. Nor am I willing to believe that a serious decline in weddings involving men and women marrying each other is on the horizon.

Patience, please. Let’s see what transpires.

Uncategorized

Same-sex couples jumping through hoops

Let’s see if we can sort this story out a bit.

The Amarillo Globe-News reported Sunday about a same-sex couple seeking a “family membership” at the Amarillo Town Club. The club has denied the couple such a membership, citing the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The couple, two women, were asked to provide a marriage license. They aren’t yet married, but plan to wed soon presumably in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage. The club informed the women that the marriage license had to be issued in Texas to make their marriage legal. Well, the state doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage, so that’s out.

The couple is petitioning the Town Club to grant them a family membership and to allow them to proceed with their weight-loss plan.

Here’s where it gets a bit sticky for the couple: The Amarillo Town Club is owned by Baptist Community Services, a faith-based organization. It’s not a public institution, funded by taxpayer money. Its members pay the freight with membership dues. Thus, the Town Club is within its rights to set admission policy any way it so chooses, as long as it doesn’t discriminate.

You want it to get even stickier?

Here goes.

My wife and I joined the Amarillo Town Club more than a decade ago. We, too, have a family membership. We signed up as husband and wife.

No one at the Amarillo Town Club — either at the main facility at 45th and Cornell or the one at Hillside — ever asked us to produce a marriage license. I cannot recall precisely, but perhaps they asked us to show them driver’s licenses to prove we were who we said we were.

A marriage license? The issue never came up. Were we even legally married? No one ever asked that question.

For the record, my wife and I were married — legally — on Sept. 4, 1971 in a little Presbyterian Church in southeast Portland, Ore. That’s in case anyone is interested.

All of this leads me to conclude that it appears some discrimination involving the two young women at the center of this story may have taken place.

Yes, indeed. This story is going to get quite complicated.