"John Anderson my Jo" or "Quit your bitching, John!"

My husband and I never had a chance to become an old couple. I'm not sure this is a bad thing or a good thing, just a thing thing. I have been fascinated by old couples all of my life. Maybe this is because my great grandmother was one of 8 long lived sisters. Of her two brothers, one died in the Argonne in WW1 and the other died a testy old bachelor. (Like my husband used to point out, any man with 8 sisters would have to be nucking futz to marry a woman!) Anyway I grew up surrounded by old couples--not older couples, but couples who had lived together so long that they looked alike, even if they thought differently. Couples who communicated in some weird Green Mansions birdspeak that no one else could understand. Even their hammer and tong arguments were in a staccato, truncated sign language that held more mystery than sense. I am certain that had my husband lived we would be tottering down that lonesome hill, hand in hand and bitching all the way.

Now I am watching my friends become old couples and I have to say it is touching as well as loony. I recently spent an evening with my first cousin and his wife. They were kind of a Romeo and Juliet in their day, small, slim, dark eyed, determined to marry even if their families were against it. (The old differences in wealth and religion plotline.) They were married in two different ceremonies, about 3 months apart, to placate both families. Now, after forty years they have their quirks. He doesn't talk a lot, never has and lately he has gotten into some weird conspiracy stuff. When he does talk, his wife, who is more than slightly deaf, leans across the table, raps her hand on it and orders: "Speak up, Jim!"

He twitches and gulps, but speaks up. After a sentence or two, she raps the table again: "Shut up, Jim. Nobody's listening." Jim shuts up. Now Jim and I had the same grandparents. Our grandfather was named Jim. This is so close to something my grandmother would have said that I almost died laughing everytime it happened. Their kids, all grown, never noticed the humor.

My sister drives when she and her husband take a trip. I recently took a three hour trip with them, to a cousin's funeral. I sat in the front with my sister. Her husband, who is incidentally six years younger than she, has decided that he no longer has the reflexes or eyesight to drive, sits in the backseat. He is in the backseat because he smokes and she does not want her car to smell like smoke (it does.) He is an ex-navy man, the kind of guy who has to be in charge. Even from the backseat. MY sister is a special ed. teacher and she also likes to be in charge. Unfortunately she can't get the GPS to work. So they have worked out this weird arrangement where she drives but he steers from the backseat. He sits in the back seat and barks the directions: "Two blocks south! Three blocks north at the next light." My sister, who is getting deaf, ignores him until she gets lost and then she blames him. It was quite a trip.

The thing that started me thinking about old couples was the election. This morning I remembered a school friend's grandparents back in an election year maybe fifty years ago. The grandfather was named Porter. I don't remember the grandmother's name but she had a parrot and I do remember the parrot because she taught it to say "Porter is a Democrat! Porter is a Democrat!" Saying someone is a Democrat in this part of Kansas goes beyond a slur. When the parrot started up, walking back and forth on his perch, Grandpa Porter would huff out of the house and go to work early. I know a lot about Democrats but not much about parrots. It did seem to me that the parrot was enjoying the whole thing.


Old couple stories? I'd love to hear some. It would be better than this wretched election. --s6