Women's Sufferage, and the payback

Today's "Baby Blues" brings back memories of sports, arts and the ex.

We got married her senior year which also would have been mine if I hadn't dropped out. The following summer, we moved to South Bend so I could take another wack at finishing up my degree. 

It would only be a year, but, between windswept prairie and urban blight, the only distractions were football games and the concerts that followed, which was quite a contrast with my bride's previous experience at the University of Colorado where the social life of Boulder ... well, it was quite a contrast. 

And she enjoyed the concerts, as who wouldn't? Livingston Taylor, the Chambers Brothers, Cat Stevens, Johnny Cash and his whole crew and I forget who else.

But she kind of looked at going to the games as the punishment for which the concert that night was the reward, and after gamely sitting through the first one, she bailed at half-time of the second which, since we'd only been married for six months, meant I had to leave, too.

She didn't want to go to the third game at all, which was okay with me except that our tickets were in the married students section. I'm not sure whether we were segregated so as not to waste a good seat on a mere spouse or because they were afraid that, if we mixed in with the single students, some of our conjugal mojo might rub off and cause them to fornicate, but sitting alone in the married section would mean sitting very much alone. Surrounded by newlyweds is as alone as it gets.

However, St. Mary's College had a very small ticket allotment and there were always girls wishing they could see a game, so I called a friend over there who had also become a good friend of my wife and was later godmother to our son, and she went as the female half of my married-student ticket to the third game and that was fine.

For the fourth game, however, she was tied up, so we decided I'd just go down to campus and see if I could find someone who needed a ticket and if not I'd just sit between Honey-Bunny and Pumpkin and make the most of it.

So I walked around outside the stadium until I ran into one of the cheerleaders, a non-romantic-level buddy from the olden days who, obviously, didn't need a ticket, but was with a friend who did. So my buddy ran inside because she was late and her friend and I went in and watched the game and then I went home.

I forget what the concert was that night, but I remember that, during intermission, we were standing out in the lobby and my friend's friend came up and thanked me again for the ticket and I introduced her to my wife, who, as soon as we were alone once more, wanted to know exactly who my statuesque, high-cheek-boned friend with the deep green eyes and the long, glowing chestnut locks was again, and that was all the motivation it took for my wife to attend the fifth and final home game of the season.

If anyone is wishing his wife would attend football games with him, I would not suggest trying that gambit because I don't think you can pull it off successfully on purpose.

And also because revenge is a dish best served cold and you never know when the plate will be put down in front of you.

It might be as much as a decade later.

By then, my wife was public information director for a college whose offerings included a summer dance workshop which brought in dancer/choreographers from around the country who would mentor promising young college-age dancers, and, each week, there would be a dance concert by one of these maestros.

At that point in our marriage, of course, we'd learned how to pick and choose our moments for togetherness, and, while I'd have been delighted to go watch a classic ballet like "Sleeping Beauty" or "Swan Lake," my interest in watching barefoot people in leotards leppin' meaningfully and symbolically and even evocatively about falls about midway between being waterboarded and being staked to an anthill.

But I had a "faculty wife" obligation, so the deal was that she would pick the one recital of the summer that seemed best and mattered most, and I would go and greet her colleagues and superiors and watch the damn concert and then linger awhile over wine and cheese, smiling and exchanging polite, meaningless words.

The last year of our marriage, she chose "The Dance of the Noble Stag," which everyone agreed was sure to be the highlight of the summer.

So we went and greeted everyone one and got to our seats and the curtain opened on a stage that was bare other than a fake tree and a small, arched wooden bridge at the rear corner, stage right. And about a half dozen girls in brown leotards came running over the bridge and started jumping rhythmically around, which was about what I expected.

What I didn't expect was a sudden rainstorm, and it wasn't entirely metaphorical. They were showering water on the stage, and we were, I guess, supposed to be enraptured by the symbolism of it all, but I was sitting there thinking that if it started running into the footlights, things could become really interesting.

But the rain passed, the sun came out and then, over the bridge, came The Noble Stag.

And I've got to say that, for a guy a good quarter century older than any of the does in the herd, the Noble Stag was in very good physical condition.

But I've also got to say that, in addition to the requisite brown leotard, the Noble Stag was wearing a pair of those felt antlers people put on their dogs for Christmas pictures.

But this was modern dance, so we all sat there paying rapt attention and digging the symbolism while I was also digging a thumbnail into my arm to keep from giggling as the Noble Stag and his does lept about the stage, and then we had cheese and crackers and talked about how wonderful and even evocative it had been.

Monday, my wife came home and reported that everyone had been rolling on the floor at work over the absurdity of this ridiculous performance, and apologized for having dragged me to it.

But by the next summer, we were working on our divorce papers and I can't help but wonder if she had held out that long simply for the right opportunity for payback.

I'd like to think so.

I mean, if you're gonna have an ex, have one Hemingway would have envied you for.

 

 

Comments

[Mary in Ohio]

Alas, I have loved baseball since I was a kid (the Indians were good in the 40's and 50's) AND I have sat through some dance recitals where, to quote Erma Bombeck, "my teeth fell asleep." So this cartoon made me ROFL!