Beech Tree News Network

On Saturday morning, I woke with the thought, “This is Garey’s and my 40th anniversary.”  The thought was immediately followed by, “Oh God, we’re in Alabama again.”  Our wedding anniversaries have been like the movie, “Groundhog Day,” the same thing in the same place over and over again.  Honestly, I don’t know how Garey and I have made it through forty years.  I’ve told you before, we are not one of those couples who need to be held up as an example, unless it’s as an example of how marriage is not to be done.
    I’ve often wondered if we had been left to ourselves and allowed to work through things without the meddling of in-laws, if things might have gone a bit smoother for us, but maybe not.  It’s hard to know about those things.  Garey’s dad, J.D., made sure he involved himself in every last detail of any and everything that had anything to do with us for the first nineteen years of our marriage.  J.D. passed away in 1994.  I thought life might be easier after he was gone, and in many ways it has been, but Garey’s mom, Agnes, is one of those people who wants and expects a lot of attention, even though she lives in Alabama and we live in Kentucky.
    On Friday, when I wake up, Agnes is already up, complaining about how slowly her commode is filling up, so Garey takes a look at it and decides he can probably fix it with a repair kit from the Ace Hardware in nearby Warrior.  He invites me to ride along.  Before we can leave, Agnes mentions the chimney again.  I say again because it has been the topic of much discussion for the past ten years—ever since the chimney separated from the house, allowing rain to run into the basement.
    “I’ve told you before, Mother,” Garey says, “You need to have somebody who has a truck with a lift to come in and remove it.”
    “Can’t it be taken down a few bricks at a time?” Agnes asks.
    “Yes, if you don’t mind paying a hundred thousand dollars in labor costs,” Garey answers.
    “I’ve had Wayne (Garey’s cousin) and Rickey (Garey’s sister’s ex-husband) patch it for me a few times and that works for a while,” Agnes says.
    At this point, I start sending out telepathic messages to Garey in hopes that he won’t suggest what I think he might suggest to Agnes, because if he does suggest what I think he might suggest, it will mean we will be spending a substantial part of our Friday up on Agnes’s roof.
    “Please don’t tell her you fixed our leak with pitch,” I think, with all the focus I can muster on that one thought.  “Please don’t tell her about the pitch…you know it won’t fix the gullies in that chimney.  Please don’t tell her about the pitch.”
    “If they used that rubber stuff they advertise by spraying a screen door and putting it in the bottom of a boat, no wonder it didn’t hold,” Garey says, “I’ll tell you what I used on my roof.”
    “He’s going to tell her about the pitch,” I think.
    “I used pitch, some people call it roof cement.” Garey says.
    A few minutes later, we’re on our way to Warrior with a list: commode repair kit, rubber gloves, trowel, pitch.  I wonder to myself if anybody else has celebrated their 40th anniversary, not with rubies—the traditional 40th anniversary stone—but with toilet parts and roof pitch.  Probably not.  We return and fix the toilet and put pitch on the chimney.

    On Saturday morning, we have breakfast with Agnes, but we can’t leave until after lunch.  There’s some bi-law in the Alabama state constitution that makes it illegal to leave your mother-in-law’s house until you have been served an eight-course meal on the day after you have spent the night before in her house.  Garey spends the time after breakfast and before lunch explaining the DISH remote to Agnes, as her little dog, Angel lies placidly in her lap.  Agnes has had the DISH network for five years now.  Every trip to Alabama includes a tutorial on how to use the DISH remote.
    “See, this button here is guide, and this button over here tells you what the show is about,” I hear Garey explain. 
I’m in the nearby bedroom trying to read.  “She doesn’t get it!” I want to yell, “Angel could use the remote by now!  Please just give it over!”  But I don’t.  I play nice.  I eat the eight-course meal, load my stuff into the car, pull up a podcast on my iphone, put in my earbuds and try to think happy thoughts on the drive home.
I have gotten one thing from all these trips to Alabama.  Garey has gotten the same thing.  We have both gained resolve.  Resolve to never to do these things to our children.  We talked to our daughter, Nikki, over the weekend.  She and her husband won’t be able to celebrate Christmas with us until January.  We told Nikki that was okay, to get to Kentucky when she and Thomas could, and we would leave the decorations up for them.  We meant that.  We weren’t just being nice.  We learned that from spending 40 years of anniversaries in Alabama, working around everybody else’s plans.  Resolve…my 40th anniversary gift.   Rubies would have been nice, too.