25 Years, Sexy Lady!

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My beautiful wife and I got married 25 years ago today. Our wedding was at the Gordon County Courthouse in Calhoun, Georgia, with Probate Judge Johnny Parker presiding. I was making $275 a week as sports editor at the Calhoun Times and Lou Ann was working at Hardee’s.

Two of my colleagues at the newspaper, Jim and Dawn McFadden, were witnesses at the ceremony. Afterwards, Dawn was kind enough to provide a wedding cake for a very small reception at our tiny rental A-frame house out off Dews Pond Road.

When I first met Lou Ann, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment south of town on U.S. 41, and the living room walls were decorated with posters for James Bond movies. The first time I had her over for dinner — I cooked hamburger steak, pinto beans and turnip greens with biscuits — we got into a conversation (which is to say, I was lecturing) about how soap operas and romance novels mislead women with totally unrealistic expectations of what love is like. Lou Ann responded by referring to the James Bond posters: “So, that’s realistic?” And I was like, “Hey, you don’t understand. That stuff totally happens. James Bond is a super spy!”

So that’s how I became “Super Spy,” while an old Isley Brothers tune inspired me to nickname Lou Ann “Sexy Lady”:

Who’s that lady? (Who’s that lady?)
Sexy lady! (Who’s that lady?)
Beautiful lady! (Who’s that lady?)
Real fine lady! (Who’s that lady?)

I would dance upon a string,
Any gift she’d want, I’d bring.
I would give her anything,
If she would just do what I say.

That song is about the pursuit of an elusive object of desire and, while the specific circumstances of our romance might not have been in every way ideal, there was a direct relationship between the elusiveness of the object and the romance of the pursuit.

Suffice it to say that, in the 10 years before I met my wife in the fall of 1987, any shortages of female companionship I’d experienced were temporary and of brief duration. It wasn’t like I was desperate or lonely, but the very first time I met Lou Ann, sparks flew and it was just a matter of whether I could get her. The getting was not easy.

She wasn’t “playing hard to get.” She was hard to get.

“Always negotiate from a position of strength” is excellent advice for young ladies. Men respond to challenges, and if you want to be loved insanely, you’ve got to drive him crazy. You want a man who’s willing to crawl through broken glass and climb over a 10-foot fence topped with razor wire to be with you? Keep the gate locked.

On Feb. 14, 1989, I placed an ad in the special Valentine’s Day section of the Calhoun Times. Addressed to “Sexy Lady,” the ad asked her to marry me and was signed, “Super Spy.”

That was a Tuesday, and I covering a basketball game at Calhoun High School that night. By the time the game was over, with deadline looming, that Valentine’s Day ad had slipped my mind, but when I got to my car, I found that the windshield was covered with a message in red lipstick: “Yes! I love you, Super Spy! — Sexy Lady.”

We got married on a Friday six weeks later.

My wife is quite literally an answer to prayer. When God gives you a good wife, you have an obligation to deserve her love, and I am embarrassed when this obligation occasionally slips my mind. Have I been a good husband? Not always, but I’ve never forgotten the moment when, at the Gordon County courthouse that day 25 years ago, Judge Parker asked me to pledge that part of the wedding vow about “forsaking all others . . . till death do you part.”
Wow. That’s some serious stuff, if you think about it.

Charles Murray recently wrote in favor of “start-up marriages.” Rather than waiting until you have established your financial independence to the point where a marriage becomes a “merger,” Murray argues, there is something to be said for marrying and starting a family while you’re still young and struggling to get ahead. Being young and poor together is a shared experience — certainly not always a pleasant experience — which, if you can make it through, becomes a special bond between a couple.

It’s weird to hear young people say they “can’t afford to get married yet.” Nonsense. No law which requires an expensive wedding — all that catering and stuff — and two can live as cheaply as one.

Call me sentimental, but I think there’s something romantic about starting off as cheaply as possible. Furthermore, as my father once told me, “If you wait to have children until you can afford to have children, you’ll never have children.” Making babies is kind of fun, you know, and figuring out how to pay the bills? Hey, that’s just part of the crawl-through-broken-glass challenge.

Left to right: Emerson, 13; me; Lou Ann; Reagan, 11 (plaid skirt); daughter-in-law Danielle; grandson James Jr. held by his father James, 21; Kennedy, 24; Bob, 21; son-in-law Martin; Jefferson, 15.

We have been blessed, and whatever hardships we endured together have only made me love her more. Love you, Sexy Lady!

— Super Spy





 

66 comments

  2. OK Stacy, is this really lovely heart warming story in leiu of a dinner out and an anniverary gift?

  5. No, “this really lovely heart warming story” was to encourage readers to hit the tip jar so I can afford “dinner out and an anniverary gift.”

    😉

  11. I know – I don’t know whether to laugh or start singing “When you’re talking in your Sleep”.

  13. Many Congraulations, Stacy. “A woman of valor who can find? For her price is far above rubies.”

  14. She was and still is gorgeous, and not just on the outside. You’re a very blessed man. Congratulations, and God bless you all.

  15. Congratulations, Stacy!

    And a heartfelt thanks to Mrs. The Other McCain … … Where would this blog be if you hadn’t roped him in?

  16. Twenty-five years is equivalent to 75 years in Hollywood. Congrats to you and your lovely wife! Beautiful photos. But how could they be otherwise with such good lookers.

  20. Well, this at least explains one thing. Obviously the lovely Mrs. Other McCain thought she was marrying Bryan Adams, and, fortunately for our esteemed host, was too stubborn to admit the error after the fact. Definitely a keeper in both senses of the term.

  22. There’s really not a thing I can add to the other comments/congrats already made here, except to endorse each and every one of them.

    May you and Saint Mrs. Other McCain [I had the Pope sneak her in on the QT yesterday] enjoy the next twenty-five even more.

  24. And 21 days from now, I’ll expect a story on The Other McCain noting that my darling bride and I have reached thirty-five years. 🙂 And we sent two kids into the Army!

    If she doesn’t kill me within the next three weeks, that is.

    And here is a song — thankfully, by someone who doesn’t have an accent — saying how long I’ll be with Elaine!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgJXbIP83A8

  25. No wonder you switched to fedoras: “business in the front, party in the back” – weren’t you the president of the Billy Ray Cyrus fan club?
    Congratulations to Mrs. McCain and TheOtherMullet-man.

  33. Congratulations! What a beautiful testimony of your love for your wife and family. Great advice as well!

  35. Ohhh that’s so sweet! My husband pursued me, proposed after we’d dated for 3 months. I almost said no, but he just swept me off my feet. We were married almost 26 years, when he died from a combination of lymphoma and organ failure. Each day was precious, we started out in a 3rd floor walk up, pinching pennies. He was a wonderful husband and father. Cherish your lives together!

  43. Your wife is very attractive, Stacy. But, why was she posing with Nicholas Cage in that first picture?
    Congratulations on a quarter century!

  44. Happy 25th! I hit your tip jar–now go buy Mrs. Other McCain an appropriately heteronormative gift!

  46. I remember you posting some of those pics before. If I may say, respectfully, your old lady was quite the fox 😉 I’m happy to read that you’re celebrating your 25th today, and seeing that pic of your happy family in turn makes me feel happy. Thanks for the good writing here, someone has to slog through the trenches in this ‘fuck you. war.’ and you’ve been soldiering on for us. Here’s to another 25 years of happiness between you and your miss 😀

    /tips drink

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