Me, a Hopeless Romantic?

It was on a cold February night in the early 1980's that I asked my girlfriend to marry me. We were college students in Iowa and, at that young age, she did not have enough sense to run for it when I popped the question.

When she teared up, I suddenly feared I had asked an absurd question. I knew she was not swayed by the size of the diamond, as it was nearly invisible to the human eye. I double checked to make sure I had not knelt on her toes. Ruling out logical explanations, I did the discreet thing and asked why she was crying. Turns out, it was February 10th and she thought I just could not wait until Valentine's Day. Yes, she mistook me for a hopeless romantic.

There was only one problem, I never gave Valentine's Day any thought. My memories of that day and celebration were less than fabulous. In school, I recall watching the popular guys getting loads of cards and candy from the girls. And the cards I gave out might as well have been labeled: Caution! This card is infested with anthrax, dog slobber, and RV's cooties. Good ol' St. Valentine's Day just did not hold any happy romantic reminiscence for me.

The truth was, the tenth was pay day and I was able to pay off the ring that day. It was not especially romantic, just practical.

So here we are thirty-three years later. You might have guessed she said yes. Poor thing, she's been stuck with Mr. Practical all these years. I hope I did not ruin her life.

As practical as I am, however, we do celebrate a few important dates. We celebrate the day we met. We celebrate the day we almost met. We celebrate the first time she saw me eat a peanut butter sandwich. I guess that was amusing to normal people back then. We celebrate the day we “went steady,” the day I proposed, and the day we got married. We sprinkle in a dozen or so other random important memory milestones and count our marriage years and months as well.

Thinking about it, I wonder how we get any work done with all that celebrating. Maybe being practical is not all that bad after all.

I Would Never do a Movie Review on this Blog

Or so I thought. The purpose of this blog is multifold. First, it is to connect with my readers. Second, it is to entertain my readers. Third, it is to share a little bit about myself, without getting overly intimate, with my readers. And, naturally, there is the profit motive. Yes, I would like to connect with more people who might purchase my books. I could really use the money.

What this blog is not: a social band wagon, a Sunday School lesson, or a media reviewer. It certainly does not want to be a political tool. (I feel like I should wash my hands off with soap after typing that.)

So, what would compel me to do a movie review? Well, in my own defense, I'm not actually going to review the movie. I'm going to share how it affected me.

I normally steer clear of movies based on true events. Mostly because when I sit down to watch a movie, I want to be entertained. True stories tend to be less than totally true to promote someone's agenda. That is annoying to me, not entertaining. I want to be transported away from my real life troubles for a time.

I don't want to be preached at or have my “purpose” defined for me. I have a Bible. I read it daily. I find my purpose and inspiration there. That said, I do enjoy a movie that portrays inspiring people and/or actions. I don't like movies that are poorly written, vulgar, or gratuitous in their gore. I intentionally keep it PG-13 or under.

Which brings up the movie: The Good Lie.

I was prepared to dislike it. The title was a bit of a turn off. It had all the makings of an entertainment fail by my standards. It is based on true events, stars an actress that I'm not overly fond of, is touchy-feely, and it took in a horrifically complex problem in our world in one vast sweep.

Despite all of that, I loved it. I even cried. You've got to be a good writer to elicit tears from me.

They did not tell me to feel sorry for these people, or who to hate, or who to support. They did not implicate anyone with political blame. They did not insult anyone's beliefs. They did not embrace any of the readily available cliché scenarios that could have turned it into a corny sitcom. They did not end it with a dramatic tragedy or with a shallow fairy tale ending. They simply told the story. They wrote it well, acted it well, and edited it well. And I fell for it.

So, if you have a couple of hours to burn and want to be entertained and maybe even inspired a little, check it out. I give it two thumbs up. And I'm still thinking about that chicken.

My Wife is an Undercover Agent!

She seems nice enough at first glance. Most people tend to think of my wife as generous, loving, and kind. That is most likely due to the baby sweaters she knits. For years, just about every newborn we knew received a handcrafted, Smithsonian quality, custom-colored baby sweater from her. Her philosophy on knitting is if it can't be done to perfection … oh, no. There are no excuses. It can be done to perfection.

She is also an editor. My editor, to be precise. It is that penchant for perfection in the minutia that makes her a fantastic grammar editor. Unfortunately for her, I am a grammar slob. I love to tell the story. I love to write the story. I am not in love with all the rules of my native language. Consequently, my wife of these many decades is by default a grammar enforcement officer.

One of the great frustrations for me is that when I ask my wife to do a quick read through to see if I am connecting with the reader, she systematically edits her way through. I begin to wonder if I have completely missed the mark. I question my self worth. I ponder the universe. I rewrite the entire tome in my head. Then she says, “This first sentence has a problem.”

FIRST SENTENCE! I have reread this stupid thing fifty-three times waiting for you to do a quick read through!

Most of us know someone who is on the grammar police force. They catch our chronic misuses of the language and, at times, can be annoying in the process.

My wife is not like that. She's on the Grammar SWAT Team. When she makes a bust on a grammar crime, the door gets kicked in, the place gets teargassed, and everyone in the room ends up face down on the floor with their hands zip-tied behind their backs! Then everything gets searched and cataloged and there is no negotiating.

This makes her sound stern, militant, and somewhat autocratic. That's not really the case at all. I guess I just give her lots of material to work with. So, if you happen to think my wife is sweet and kind and would like to see her alter ego, just hand her something to proofread. But you had better have thick skin or be really in love with red pencil marks.

Do You Want to See My Legs?

That question came from a lady who was a regular customer in a feed store I worked at in Alaska. The year was 1980 something. And the question seemed to come out of nowhere.

Um, AWKWARD! I fought back the gut wrenching panic that wanted to surface.

Something was way out of kilter in my universe. A lady who was substantially my senior, and who was normally all about her pets, should not be hitting on me.

I looked up. Yikes! She was walking toward me!

There was no where to run and no way to hide. I quickly tallied the odds of keeping my job if I had to jump through the window to escape.

“Look, here's the picture. Those are my legs.”

I'm a married man! My silent plea echoed in my head.

“And this was So-and-so, a such-and-such breed that won first place in …”

My blood pressure dropped back into a measurable range. My alarm was alleviated. The picture was in a book about show dogs, and the lady, whose name has long escaped my memory, had a winning dog in a show way back when. That her knees were visible in the picture was only noticed because she pointed it out.

“That's my claim to fame there,” the lady remarked with chuckle. She then went into great detail about what a great dog that was.

I don't really remember much of that monologue. My mind was busy being relieved to have the universe spinning in the right direction again.

Some days, I think it must be really weird for regular people to be around me.

The Secret Life of RV Hodge

The house lights go down and the audience's indiscernible din of chatter suddenly becomes a collective cheer.

Then, as if on cue, there is intense silence.

The anticipation is explosive.

The spots suddenly illuminate the platform and the show begins!

The crowd goes wild! The noise is deafening!

Are we at a rock concert?

No! It is so much better than that! It's a collaborative duet!

The two performers yank the veil, revealing the book cover.

Shawna and RV play the audience like a reunion of ageless rock stars …

The Real Life of RV Hodge

I am excited to reveal the the delightful collaborative work of myself and the very talented Shawna Apps! Here is a sneak preview of the cover of the first book in a series of children's stories!

I hope you all love it and will share this with your friends who have children or grandchildren. Please stay tuned for more announcements.

Be sure to check out Shawna's other work as well.

http://backtothedrawingboardart.com/