28 Years Later....

Okay, so this photo is from 1978, nor 1979, but that's close enough. Left to right, we have my stepmother Ruth, my Dad (Frank Funk), me, and my friend and college roommate Evelyn. On May 19th, 1979, these four people, plus my mom, my brother Steve, my other best friend "d", soon-to-be-ex priest Ed Van Auken, and most of all, John Blocher (along with his mother and sister) were in St. Patrick's Church in Syracuse, NY. That was was the day I walked down to aisle, accompanied by Mozart, not either of the traditional wedding tunes. Afterward we had our reception at Community House, one of last functions held there before the University sold the place.

The honeymoon consisted of camping our way from New York to Ohio, in an elderly Ford Falcon van, in the rain. A week before, I was finishing up my student years at Syracuse University, my graduation ceremony made a lie by all my incompletes, mostly unwritten English papers. At the end of the honeymoon, I was living in a duplex on 13th Ave in Columbus, Ohio with John and his best friend. Soon after that, John and I were in a little apartment on King Avenue that smelled of cat pee. Imagine my allergies!

I'm not going to recap my whole married life here. The point is simply this: I'm very happy about what happened 28 years ago today. On May 19, 1979, I married this smart, funny, creative, cantankerous man I'd met at the Clarion Writer's Workshop at Michigan State, nearly two years before. It wasn't a lavish wedding; we didn't want that anyway. The honeymoon was a modest one, and so was our life, for years and years. Money problems pretty much always put strain on a marriage, but we got through it all, ran a little store, moved to Tucson and had another twenty-one years of adventures and misadventures. We both went back to school, but not at the same time. We tried to have a kid, but it didn't work. John published books and trading cards (I helped with some of those), and then went to work for others as an editor. I became a travel agent, and then a bookkeeper, and then an accountant. We went to London and Hawaii, Las Vegas and Disneyland, and moved into a fixer-upper house, which still needs plenty of fixer-upping.

28 years later, John and I are still together, and likely to remain so. Today, after I've slept and given blood, we'll go to a movie, and watch Doctor Who together, and maybe go out to dinner. It won't be extravagant, but that's fine. It will be me and my best friend, enjoying each other's company. Happy Anniversary, John!

Karen