Ask Bob

The other night, Sheri and I argued over potatoes. She had made meatloaf. It was a great meatloaf. Boiled potatoes sat on the side.

As I forked potato and sour cream into my mouth, I said something like, “I’m not supposed to eat potatoes.”

This led to a discussion of our diets, our menus. Somewhere along the line, we misunderstood each other. Sheri thought I was criticizing our eating habits and blaming her for them (I wasn’t). I thought she didn’t believe that potatoes were bad for me. It’s true, I wasn’t explaining myself well. Sheri knows that the strange head trips I’ve had since childhood – during which the world slows its motion and objects shine brighter and my balance teeters and I become ravenous – have to do with blood sugar. To prevent my spells, I need to eat mostly protein, though some fats are okay, too, and stay away from sugars – especially high fructose corn syrup and other items high on the glycemic index. Among these are potatoes.

But when I said that potatoes had too much sugar, Sheri didn’t believe me. Her newspaper editor’s hat appeared, pulled low over her skeptical gaze.

And I remembered another time when she didn’t believe me. The details here are fuzzy, too. It had to do with a big auto crash at an intersection near the Bitterroot River in Montana, where we used to live. Driving by one day, I mentioned the smash-up. For some reason, Sheri didn’t believe it had happened. Maybe because she hadn’t heard of it elsewhere or seen it in a newspaper. A week or so later, we drove by again, this time with our friend Bob McGiffert, a curmudgeon and professor emeritus at the local university. A true gray eminence. He mentioned the accident. Sheri said, “Oh,” and she believed him. Stupefied, I protested.

Ever since, when we’ve disagreed over a fact, we’ve said to each other, “Let’s ask Bob.”

Bob died this past Christmas. He was a great good friend, among the most big-hearted men I’ve known. We miss him and his feisty, curmudgeonly zest. When we disagree, we still want to ask him – at least in spirit – to be our Google, our arbiter, to know who is right.

But we couldn’t do that over our potatoes. So I wondered aloud why Sheri had been willing to believe Bob that long-ago day, but not to believe her husband. Why is it that if Bob were here, and he said something about potatoes and blood sugar, she’d believe him?

“It’s because he was older, wasn’t it?” I said.

And she said, “That’s a blog post.”

Q & A

You have questions? We have (some)
answers

We sometimes wonder: What questions do people really want to ask us about our age difference?

And over the past two years, we’ve answered most of them on the 100+ posts on this blog.

Q: How do you deal with the fact that the older woman will probably die well before the younger man?

A: Michael thinks about it a lot.

Q. What was it like to meet his/her parents?

A. A lot more stressful for Sheri than for Michael. And pretty stressful for Michael’s mom, at first.

Q. Does the older woman worry about being left for a younger woman?

A. Sometimes. See death question, above.

Q. How did you deal with not having children?

A. We are still dealing with it: Michael here….. Sheri here.

Q. In the beginning, did you think he was just a boytoy?

A. Actually, no.

Q. Have you ever been mistaken for mother and son?

A. Yes

Q. What was the sex like and has it changed?

A. This is about as close to that as we’re ready to go.

Him+17, countrified

Sheri’s a merciless editor – even of her husband’s words -- and nothing I write gets out of the house without her reading it first. Likewise, I read her work. We collaborate. We butt heads. And in the end, what we write is better for our collaboration. Our marriage is, too.

So I’m rooting for Marty Stuart and Connie Smith, a husband and his seventeen-years-older wife, who right now are Grammy Award nominees for a duet called “I Run To You.” The show will be broadcast next week, on Feb. 13, 8 p.m. east coast time, on CBS. The couple are competing for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Stuart is up for another for Best Country Instrumental; both songs come from his album Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions.

The couple married in 1997, having first met when Marty was a 12-year-old who saw Connie perform at a fair in his hometown. She forgot him, but he didn’t forget her. You can watch them perform “I Run To You” in this video.

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I’m no country music expert, and the song is likable enough, but I’m saying the outfits are more fabulous than the tune. Nevertheless can’t we all agree that husband-and-wife teams with a seventeen-year age difference deserve mega-national awards? Isn’t there a Pulitzer Prize for blogging collaborations?

Can’t we also agree that I’d look yes-yes-yes in a silk scarf and sequins?

Common Grace

New T-shirts didn't help; Calvin lost 76-70.

My husband – bless his heart – spent yesterday afternoon watching my alma mater’s basketball team play its arch rival.

This was not even an opportunity to sit on the bleachers and cheer on the Calvin College Knights. Instead, we viewed the game through a live TV feed to a Greene Turtle sports bar about a half-hour’s ride south of us in Hanover, Md.

The game was the latest in an epic rivalry, which has pitted Calvin against the Hope College Flying Dutchmen since either 1917 or 1921, depending on whom you ask. Dutch Calvinists make up the population of both colleges, a mere 30 miles apart in Western Michigan. And Dutch Calvinists can find excuses to argue over just about anything ( infralapsarianism vs. supralapsarianism; common grace vs. special grace; how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and should they even be dancing at all?). So even the date of the first official game is in dispute.

More than 70 watch parties were scheduled around the country, bringing Calvin and Hope grads together to watch the game, compare Dutch names ( Haverdink? Slopsema? Vlaardingerbroek?) and keep the rivalry going.

Michael, who loves basketball and loves me (maybe not in that order), thought this could be a fun afternoon among the Calvinists. We got in the spirit and went online to order Calvin T-shirts from the campus bookstore. Meanwhile, representing the class of 1969, I thought I might be the oldest Calvin grad there.

We found the bar and settled in at a table of alums from the 1980s. But if Michael (University of Arizona, 1986) was among age-appropriate fans, I was not. Then, a woman at the next table noticed my name tag and leaned toward me.

Were you class of ’69?” she asked.  It took me only a second to recognize her.

“Switch chairs with me,” I said to Michael.

And while Dawn and I caught up with 40 years of life after Calvin,  Michael was happy to carry on in the now, chatting with a 1980 Hope graduate as Calvin blew an 18-point lead and lost the game. 

The Return of The HimPlus Roundup

We’ve been bad bloggers of late. Dragged ourselves through September with only an occasional post, then October stepped up to beat us with a long-stemmed pumpkin.

There’s stuff we want to write about. Honest! Real stuff! But lately there’s been more life to live than time to write about it.

So, don’t go away, please. Don’t think we’re finished with this blog just because we’ve not shared much lately. We’re still here. The blog heart still beats.

And to prove it, here’s a HimPlus Roundup! Betty White, Chrissie Hynde, and Time magazine’s declaration that the “Cougar” phenomenon might be a media creation …

J.P., Chrissie and the Fairground Boys

Chrissie Hynde and her new band recently ended a tour in support of their album, an album that has as its hook her love affair with a younger man. He approached her at a party. They chatted. Next thing you know, they’re together in Havana writing songs. “He was learning to stand,” Chrissie sings in the opening track, “when I was wearing my first wedding band.”

Reports Chrissie on her web site:

“We’ve been truthful on this album. We’ve proven that two people can love each other, override their base desires, and distill the love into something musical, something elevated, something rock and roll.”

I’ve listened to a few tracks, and Hynde’s voice sounds fabulous as ever. The young man, J.P., sings out of some place between Tom Waits’ growl and the earnest rasp of John “Cougar” Mellencamp.

Oh yes I did! I used "Cougar" with Mellencamp.

J.P., who is 32 and Welsh, and Chrissie, who is 58, co-wrote the album, and each track is a kind of duet. The tracks I’ve heard have energy and edge, and they’re not always pretty, but ain’t that how it goes?

SPEAKING OF WALES

A psychologist from the University of Cardiff has declared that there is no Cougar phenomenon. According to Time magazine, Michael Dunn has released a study based on his review of dating sites in which he finds a statistically insignificant portion of older women seeking younger men.

And here I go, quoting Time quoting the Australian Associated Press quoting this guy from Wales: "I do believe the cougar phenomenon is a myth and, yes, a media construct."

In its article, Time immediately notes that the phenomena DOES exist if you ask the right people, such as a woman who wrote a book called Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men.

BETTY WHITE IS NO COUGAR, BUT SHE LOOKS CUTE WITH THE EARS

And, finally, Betty White told Parade magazine in an article published a week or so ago that though she might lust for Robert Redford (14 years younger) she’s not really a Cougar … “I’ve always liked older men,” Parade quotes her as saying. “They’re just more attractive to me. Of course, at my age there aren’t that many left!”

The Twilight's Last Gleaming: His Version

We’d lived in Baltimore three years without having visited Fort McHenry, one of the city’s most historic sites, and one of the places where Baltimore turned the British back during the War of 1812. So when good friends visited last month, we suggested a trip.

It was a warm day, hot when the wind quieted, and we all wore hats and carried water bottles, wondering as we entered the visitors center whether anyone inside would enforce the “no drinks” sign posted at the door. Not at all. The ranger, an elegant man with old world manners, directed us to the counter to answer our questions and take our money.

As Sheri wrote in her most recent post, “Politely, the ranger … asked whether any of us had an America the Beautiful senior pass, or whether we would like to purchase one for $10.” We asked for details, and he allowed as how the holder of such a pass would gain free access along with up to three guests to any national park in the country.

It’s almost as if that’s the only thing I heard. I love the national parks, and Sheri and I have enjoyed some of our finest times in them: watching wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt in North Dakota, hiking in Acadia in Maine, Glacier, Yellowstone … The idea of getting into all these places for free with my wife seemed to me a great gift, a reason to be happy with my government and country, and to cheer. I did cheer ­– a whoop or holler befitting a fort where soldiers endured a British bombardment and sent the King’s men on their way. Free admission! Great news!

We’re on the same side, Sheri and I. Yet at Fort McHenry, even though we won, we suffered a casualty. Now and then, I forget Sheri’s older. She makes it easy to do.

So as I whooped, she reached into her wallet for her driver’s license, and she glanced at me as she handed proof of her age to the ranger, her smile tight and false.

The Twilight’s Last Gleaming

Of 56 national parks in the U.S., I have been to 14. My much younger husband is almost even with me at 13.

We figured this out at the beginning of the summer, on a road trip to central Virginia. While Michael drove, I discovered the national parks page at the front of our new 2010 road atlas. Ever competitive, and frequently restless during a road trip, I began counting the parks we’d been to. We’ve been together almost 20 years, so most of them have been joint trips: to Acadia in Maine, Hot Springs in Arkansas, Glacier in Montana. Our first national park together was Shenandoah.

But in my longer-than-his life, I’ve also been to the Everglades and Mount Rainier and Minnesota’s Voyageurs Park without him. He’s gawked at the redwoods in California and seen the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde without me. At the start of every one of those trips and at other historical sites, we paid our entry fee – we’ve never managed to make it on those free-admission weekends.

But no more. Last month we brought some visitors from Arkansas to see Fort McHenry, the national monument on a peninsula in the Baltimore harbor from which the flag flew during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem. The entrance fee was $7 and we all dug into our wallets.

Politely, the ranger who would receive our money asked whether any of us had an America the Beautiful senior pass, or whether we would like to purchase one for $10. Of course, I was the only one who met the age requirement, and I was way out ahead of my companions in their 40s and 30s. Such a deal for them! If I confessed my age, all three could also get in free. So at this battlefield where bombs had burst in air, I had my own internal war.

It was a war we all won when I pulled out my driver’s license to confirm my age. Buying the $10 pass means free admission for the rest of my life — for me and any three people with me — to any national park or monument or recreation site. But it also means another admission: I’m 62, drat it.