Yesterday was our 32nd. wedding anniversary. I am not much for ceremony and neither is Leon, neither do we do the expensive-gift-dance, ( I need a diamond ring or a mink coat like I need a second head. i.e. not at all, thank you all very much !)
We went out to Jimmy Macs*, a red-neck place to be if there was ever one - and we are both red necks, and proud of it, and, then we went to Sportco and bought plastic tackle boxes for one another : he is using his for his black-powder (gun) supplies
and mine is going to be a storage place for the tools/stringing materials and other general basic beading supplies.
We both shoot only paper, by the way, I've never mentioned that hobby but we don't get out to the shooting range very often, any more. It is about 25 miles from here, perhaps a little less and costs a lot of gas. I have told Leon, though, that I must shoot at least once a year or I will grow afraid, once again ... it's a bit of an exaggeration but I honestly love my little 22 and need to hear it bang, now and again. Do I shoot well? Well. sort of...
the worms are not quite in the danger they were back in the 1990's.
We don't hunt. I think we would if we needed to but we don't- I have a really soft heart when it comes to animals and Leon grew up among hunters when he visited his uncle's farm but his immediate family lived in one of the cities of the Tidal Virgina in his youth so hunting never became one of his constants. I suspect if his dad had lived longer and Leon grew up in upstate Virgina, as he would have, he would have acquired a taste for the sport.
I grew up in a hard working, citified family of Italian Immigrants, not much use for guns or hunting, there, sad to say because I would have loved to get out into a forest, as a kid.
Well, anyway, we came home and enjoyed the day. I cleaned up my study - the room you see in the 'gifts-2007' pictures - it had gone from small wreck to big disaster in a week and I could barely sit at the computer so it was time to straighten it up and just make it a cluttered room, once again ! But don't get me wrong, it was a lovely day, the work was fun and Leon visited often as I moved, dusted and generally made order out of chaos. Later we worked together on projects and watched old Marx Brother's movies and if heaven exists and I believe it does, a good example of it was, yesterday, in this house.
A note about red-neck-ness : I do not use the term derisively as many do, I am proud to be married to a man whose family worked the land, here in America, just as my family worked the land of Italy for generations and it is obvious that his dad wanted to live out in the country : that is where he built his home and would have lived if death had not intervened. My family only became city-folk here in America, after arriving in 1920. Farming and hard work are honorable and good for the soul. I mock those who think themselves superior to the farmers, maids, nurses, cooks, technicians, electricians,machinists, custodians, fishermen, police, firemen, seamstresses, laborers, military, dishwashers, cowboys, stonemasons, railroad workers and kitchen helpers of the world. We hard working people make civilization possible... the elites of any society could be killed in second and the society would merrily go on... but what if all the Red Necks - the guys who work for their dollar, left, suddenly ... everything would fall apart. Red neck - you get your neck red working in the sun - (though I would have delighted getting a little more sun when I was maid!) should be a compliment, not an insult. We do not value our red necks any more.. My dad had one and he worked on the railroad and as a machinist during the war and later in life as a church custodian... all honorable, hard jobs that must be done if everything is going to hold together in the thing we call civilization. My husband is a computer programmer and works around the modern versions of the same machines my dad worked and his red neck is more metaphoric than real... but just as mentally real as those of his ancestors. He is a proud southerner and I am proud of him. So, you,all, feel superior to us because we are conservative, hard-working middle class people living in a small house and driving in a truck... mock us for our red necks and traditional family lives - but don't try surviving without us... you would be dead in a week ! ( I mean YOU, media elites, entertainers & college professors, etc. you can not surrive without all the human beings that do all work for you so you can smell pretty, think classy thoughts and look good !)
So - another year has passed. I remember that day very well and best and smartest thing I ever did was marry Leon. My life had no meaning, no direction, heck, I didn't think it really my own until I found my dear man. Thank God for Leon and for all the years we are given to live as man and wife. I wouldn't trade my dirty dishes, cat boxes and small house for all the wealth of this world; all the mansions, fame or power of this world mean nothing without love and companionship. I have what I want and it is right here in this house, reading the news at his computer!
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http://www.jimmymacsroadhouse.com/ 
