OK So I Didn't Meet Carroll on the Eyrarbakki Ferryboat...
the true story of how I snagged my lovely wife

Those of you who read the preceeding essay entitled Hitchin and Fessin Up are aware that I did not meet my wife on the Eyrarbakki Ferryboat. That contention was the product of a momentary lapse in my usual adherance to rigorous honesty. The true story of how I met and won the heart of my lovely wife Carroll is perhaps a more interesting one. I should preface this account by acknowledging one of my not insignificant number of human imperfections. That is a certain inclination towards manipulativeness. This propensity was more pronounced when I was a younger man and it was as a younger man that I encountered Carroll. The reader may reasonable wonder, what did Carroll see in this guy? This mystery is yet another argument for the existence of a merciful God. Viktor Frankl wrote that "Love allows one to see the potential in the other including that which is not yet actualized, but ought to be actualized." Carroll apparently believed there was enough of me left to reclaim. She is proof of my newly coined adage that behind every contented, lame man there's a much smarter, able bodied woman.

The reader of other writing on this web page may have already guessed that it's Carroll who will emerge as the stalwart mainstay of this tale. Well, of course. Aside from being of the demonstrably superior gender, she's a nurse by profession. Nurses, as any sensible person knows, are heroes: She's knee deep in blood and feces a good deal of the working day and is not likely to be thrown by a shabby past or a small time infirmity.

When Carroll and I met, I was the director of a homeless shelter in Milwaukee. I was on my way out of this position and she was working for the person hired to take my place. Meeting Carroll flew in the face of my long held belief that the world was a duplicitous, malevolent place. To lift a lyric from a John Mellancamp tune, she was so cute that she'd stop a clock. This petite little thing in her mini skirt and suede go go boots literally took my breath away. I thought her the sexiest, funniest most endearing creature I'd ever met. And, from the onset I knew her to be the kindest, most honest woman to cross my jaded path. People who knew Carroll adored her, including her boyfriend Peter with whom she then shared a residence. Peter I should note, was then, and is now, a very nice man.

The reader may find it particularly poor form that my pursuit of Carroll's affections were not deterred by her existing relationship. But, what dear reader was I to do? I thought it fair to float a "trial balloon" with the intention of respectfully withdrawing should she register no interest. So, I decided to write her a note.(The reader may here recall my earlier admission to certain manipulative inclinations.) The note stated the following: Dear Carroll, it appears to me that all of the really good women may already have been spoken for. You, of course, are a prime example. It does, however appear that given the uncertain times in which we live, that many of these relationships will not endure. I am writing to you in the hope that I might be placed on your waiting list in the event that things do not work out with you and Peter. So as to make this as easy for you as possible I am including a multiple choice response card. I would ask you to check the most appropriate option and return it to me in the self addressed stamped envelope. The options I afforded her were these: 1. This correspondence is in poor taste. I'm quite happy with my circumstances and would ask that you not bother me again. 2. I'm flattered. I found your correspondence mildly amusing but no thanks, 3. I'm surprised, not sure what to make of this, but will give the matter continuing thought 4. I am definitely placing you at the top of my waiting list.

As luck would have it, Peter was present when Carroll opened the mail and he read my clever little ditty over her shoulder. Suffice to say that he failed to see the humor in my approach and my return note was destroyed during their subsequent discussion. What I did not know at the time was that their romantic relationship had indeed plateaued some time earlier and evolved into one more akin to "best friends". The opening salvo in the intricate dance of the heart had been made.

It was during the early days of this furtive courtship that Carroll and I first visited Washington Island. I suggested the destination because it sounded romantic and it was far enough away to insure anonymity. I remember that trip well. Both she and I had reached well deserved points of revulsion with the lives we'd been leading and were wondering what to do next. We were nearing the end of our sightseeing excursion on the island's "Cherry Train", me looking off the caboose at the receding pastoral landscape. I recall having this wistful thought that maybe we could make a life here.

We were married in September of 1983, six months after first becoming acquainted. It's fair to say that not everyone felt this marriage to be a good idea. Carroll's mother, for one, found the prospect of our nuptials to violate a number of her fundamentalist beliefs and consequently chose to boycott the occasion. Carroll's boss and self appointed surrogate mother, a woman with whom she had a close and longstanding relationship cautioned her strongly against the union. Bob, a recently paroled long time resident of the homeless shelter, a man with a decidedly violent past, thought it likely that I'd break her heart and announced his intention to kill me. We were however fiercely in love. Carroll asked Father Brian, a priest who regularly volunteered at the shelter if he might be willing to perform the ceremony. He declined indicating that he had a number of theological problems with the prospect. Father Brian, who was at the very time boffing a number of his parishioners as well as Carroll's aforementioned surrogate mother and boss, may well have been just too darn busy.

We were married in a United Church of Christ sanctuary located in one of the shabbier of the many shabby Milwaukee inner city neighborhoods. The block vaguely resembled Faluja after being "liberated" by the US marines. The sanctuary was attached to the recently opened homeless shelter or "Guest House" as it was euphemistically called. The shelter had found a home there because the church faithful had dwindled to a handful and noone was likely to raise an objection. The once proud wood frame structure itself was in grave disrepair. I'm told that a significant portion of the steeple itself toppled into the street several days after our wedding. Carroll's mom, I suspect, would not have been surprised to hear this. The grand pipe organ had a magnificent sound, just not the one intended. The church had no permanent pastor but a succession of "guest" pastors who swooped in, assuaged their need to attend to the downtrodden, and returned from whence they came. We were able to coax the fellow temporarily at the helm to perform our ceremony.

The wedding itself was a lovely event. Carroll's four siblings and a goodly number of our friends were in attendance. Eclectic I think would be an appropriate descriptive term. There was a Buddhist invocation, poetry, the exchange of vows, some music, and cookies. Our, by then mutual friend Peter, was in the front row. Carroll's sister who sat next to him reported that tears streaked his cheeks. Did I mention that Peter is, without question, one of the most forgiving people I've had the pleasure to know. And me, well you'll have to decide. In my defense I was way gone in love. A large contingent of our homeless acquaintances attended the ceremony and a few played prominent roles. It was apparent that many had spent the day scrounging attire befitting such a gala event. One such fellow in particular deserves special, albeit post humus, mention. Bob ( a different Bob than the homicidal fellow mentioned earlier) was a gentle older man who had showed up at the shelter months earlier, on the night of it's opening. He'd returned to the shelter every night thereafter. He was a shy man with a face lifted from the lyrics of a Merle Haggard song. It was a face deeply lined with the embedded evidence of thirty years of hard living. Bob always stationed himself by my counter at the shelter. I think he felt safest there. For a long time he said little but as the weeks and months wore on he began to tell me about his life. As a younger man, he'd been a professional organist, playing at supper clubs and churches. He'd taken to drifting and drinking hard and well, he didn't recall much of the rest. When plans for our wedding were afoot I asked bob if he'd honor us by playing the church's pipe organ. He was extremely reluctant claiming he'd not played in many years and wasn't sure he even remembered how. I kept at him and eventually he relented. Despite the sorry repair of the organ, Bob's playing on the day of our wedding was hauntingly beautiful. It was apparent that he took a great deal of pride in the part that he played in our special day. Sometime after Carroll and I had departed for our new lives in Madison we learned that Bob had been found beaten to death on the sidewalk in front of the "Guest House". I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would wish to hurt that sweet old man.