Hey all, I forgot to tell you guys earlier, probably because I hadn't remembered till Deb sent me an email with a dinner reservation confirmed attachment.

This was our 28th anniversary. We celebrated with a fine dinner at Settler's Bar Lodge restaurant and right now I'm so full I can barely move. Chewed a sliver of ginger root which took the bloat away but I think I'll have to do it again. 

Anyway, I'm really feeling fine and more so I'm feeling thankful to live in a country where folks say, "dang I ate too much," so often. 

Deb looked at me like I'm nuts when I toasted the next 28 years. 

Life's good.

Frosty The Lucky.

Congratulations to you and Deb.  It would have been 36 with Martha if not for the f......g cancer.  I'm very happy with the 9 with Madelynn.

G

Congratulations, Frosty and Deb! And George and Madelynn!

Lisa and I celebrated 33 years last May, and this fall, it will be 45 years since we met in 8th grade home room. As I say every year, it’s a good start. 

Congrats,  wife and I just had 30 ourselves

Debi and I will celebrate our 45th this coming September 20th. "God willing and the Creek don't rise." Hard to believe we have been hammering hot steel together on the anvil for about 40 of those years.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~

Yeah, sometimes it seems like just yesterday and others it feels like we've been married forever.  I got married pretty late in life 45 but I'm pretty sure Deb's the only one. She's great backup and everybody needs backup now and then.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Congrats to all of you.   I didn't make it first time around, only 22 years before the divorce but I'm considering starting over again with my girlfriend.   An amazing and fun woman. 

It really is a wonderful feeling to find that "one". Congratulations to you and Deb. And to the others who have chimed in as well!

Ashley and I are always a bit unsure which anniversary to claim, lol. It wasn't legal to marry when we met. If it had been, then we would have likely married in 2005 after Ashley graduated college. Anyway, we usually just say we've been together since 2001 and have been legally married since April 2016.

It is. We met via a long list of coincidences. I'd written a short email about operating a snow blower on the hillside above Anchorage Ak. The grader operator, the arrow truck operator and I took lunch at the parking lot at the top of the road. It was crystal clear and about -20f. If you've never seen a sub zero clear winter sky from above light pollution it can be awesome. You can see what color stars are and they don't twinkle they're hard bright points. The "stars" that appear whitish yellow are most probably galaxies. 

So, we're standing in the parking lot stretching our legs and looking at the stars when I spotted what I was hoping to see, comet Hale Bopp, I pointed at it and said, "Look it's Hale Bopp!" One of the other operators name was Bob and thought I was messing with him. I clarified, he said oh and just about then the Aurora just exploded across the sky. Si, there we were standing in a parking lot above Anchorage which in itself as well worth the drive to see on a night like that, in -20f temps staring at the little blue fuzzy spot aurora doing it's dance around us. Being fuzzy on such a clear night is what caught my attention and the more we looked at it the longer the tail grew. Pretty soon there were other folks who'd come up to watch.

Anyway, I wrote it up as a story a little longer than above and sent it to a couple friends. When I got up the next day about 1pm (I WAS working grave yard shift) and had "breakfast" watching the news and checked my email. I had something like 1,200 emails from people all over the world responding to my little story and they kept coming in for longer than I wanted to read. Lots of, Yeah me too! emails.

Deb's email was maybe the second one I opened, we hit it right off, talked on the phone and visited. She and Dad hit it off big time and I discovered how much I really REALLY HATE chat. I flew down to see her and about 2 months later she flew up to visit me and we got married at the courthouse 07/11/1997. Then of course she flew back home, sold off her stuff and a 40 acre hobby farm. We found and bought a 32' box van, one of her goat breeder friends picked it up and had his mechanic go through it and bring it up to condition to make the 3,600+ mile run.

One of the real high points was taking a detour to E. Wenatchee Wa. parking around a corner, sneaking up and knocking at the kitchen door while the folks were having their morning coffee. It was a family tradition we'd been doing it at the same time since I was little. 

Anyway, Dad was standing up and sitting down saying, "it's its!" Mother let him go for a little while giving my the (Point for you) look and said, "It's Deb George, Deb."

Another score that trip was convincing the folks to get a computer instead of talking on the phone and running up the bill all the time. I'd brought my laptop 486 and subscribed for a short term local connection so dial up wouldn't really drive the phone bill up. Anyway, I got them by conspiring with my Brother Dennis and he emailed pics of the grandkids taken right then. 

I still had to spend time on the phone with them teaching them how to operate the darned thing. Dad thought you had to hold the button down to move the mouse so he was dragging the windows closed, icons around and generally doing everything wrong. They read emails by printing them out, missed out on links, etc. I ended up contacting their provider and paying for lessons and they finally became online enough. 

Anyway, that's sort of how Deb and I met. The story is longer of course and lasted about 6 months. Heck our reception was September 28th. 97 so we celebrated 2 anniversaries at first. Come our 10th, 09/ 28/ 2007 I won a TBI when a birch tree I was felling kicked back.

Been a long strange but rewarding trip.

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

My great-grandfather (for whom I am named) proposed to (and was accepted by) my great-grandmother before leaving for Alaska in 1887. They didn't actually get married until seven years later, with the long-distance relationship sustained by extremely irregular mail service.

Sounds like my Maternal Grandmother and Pappy. Guy Beede, was a federal superior court circuit judge for the pacific circuit. He traveled from Canadian border to San Francisco and east to the great divide in the Rockies. Mom and Pappy saw each other maybe 2-3 times a year. He made IIRC 2 full circuits between proposing and the wedding. Mom was 14 yro when they wed and had been engaged for maybe 2.

Different times.

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

Here is a good one for y'all. 

Me and my "wife" are not married, we have been together for 23 years. Living together, raising kids, and grandkids. Just never actually married. We are both divorced and at one time neither one of us wanted to do it again. Now 23 years later and it is just status quo. Any way so what is so odd about that you ask? We met about 30 years ago. Me and my wife at the time used to hang out at Dead shows and festivals. One of my freinds that used to come with us, his girlfriend started coming, you see where this is leading now right? A few years pass, they split and me and her started dating. Ok, so what is so weird. My friend is now married to my ex-wife. Yes, they started dating not long after me and my ol' lady. It gets better. I went to their wedding. We are all actually still friends, we have cook outs in the summer with the grandkids, celebrate the birthdays, graduations, etc. all together. 

Frosty, JHCC, Steve, Irondragon, Shainaru, congratulations. 

JHCC, my mom and dad's anniversary is May 11. Mothers day. 

George, you have been blessed twice. I doubt i would ever find another person that would put up with me. 

Chad, hope everything works out for you. I will say a little prayer for ya. 

OK.  You folks have convinced me to chime in.  Sep. 22nd is my anniversary with Lori; we are common law spouses as well.  My ex was named Lori also.  The current Lori and I met at work around 1998-99.  We worked together a lot, talked a lot, and I eventually developed feelings for her.  Lori the ex caught on and said I should stop speaking to her and all, but the good Lori gave me the feeling that I had known her for almost all my life, maybe even in a previous life.

The ex took the kids back to Michigan and good Lori and I had a little fling.  She had separated from her husband as was I from my ex.  After a time, she decided to try to make her marriage work and moved to another part of NC.  In 2000, I suffered a horrible accident (I moved back to Michigan and got back together with my ex.) and it took 11 years to recover from it.

During the time I was back with the ex, I never forgot about good Lori.  Then, I found out that my ex was wanting to have a trial relationship with the next-door neighbor.  She tried to play me for a chump, deleting call and text records from her phone.  The problem with that is that you cannot delete the online records that your cell phone provider keeps.  This time, I decided it was really over with ex Lori.  So I looked on Facebook and found good Lori, I messaged her and told her I was getting divorced.  She had been long divorced and had searched for me online but to no avail.

We talked for months until I flew her to Michigan to meet up again for the first time in 11 years.  We went to a renaissance festival that is held every year in the fall.  She returned to NC and went right into the hospital with sepsis.  She spent about eight weeks in the hospital getting antibiotics through a picc line.  When she was discharged, I was there and brought her to Michigan to live with myself and my two children.  They really took to her well.  The ex was not too happy because she had obsessed over her for all those years.  Oh well, so sad, too bad for her.  I even sent the ex a thank you card one time.

Anyway, good Lori had a mechanical mitral valve replacement from before we got back together.  As such, there was vegetation (germs, infection) that had not been completely cleared up by the antibiotics: so she once more was hospitalized for sepsis.  Her surgeon explained that the mechanical vale would never be cleared completely of infection and that the only course of action was to remove and replace it.

She did well for about nine years until that valve needed replacement.  That was in September of 2019--she nearly died.  Due to severe complications, she had to have the left leg amputated above the knee and the two greater toes of her right foot.

Well, six years later we are approaching our 14th anniversary and yet another valve replacement.  Yes, the same one.

She has been a great partner and stepmother to my kids.  I take good care of her and her two children are very appreciative of that.  I am looking forward to many more years with her after her next valve replacement.  Wish us luck folks.  Sorry for writing a novella.

There's an urban legend at the college where I work (which is ironic, as we are not an urban campus) that all its alumni end up marrying each other. (It's true for me and Lisa, but we first met in eighth grade and started dating in high school, so that doesn't really apply.) I once met two alumni from the 1950s; he had dated and married her roommate, and she had dated and married his. Many years later after both of those spouses had died, they reconnected at a reunion and married each other!

That's quite a story Lee. I'll say a few words with higher for you and the good Lori. Heck ex Lori too, everybody needs a word now and then. Many many more turns around old Sol to you.

As a side note, there's no such thing as "common law" anything in the USA, that's old England and by different names European. America wrote and adopted the Constitution and Bill of Rights repudiating the concept of different laws for different classes of citizen, among other things. A marriage license is an enforceable legal contract and not a requirement to be "married." I don't believe it's illegal to be "married" without a license anymore anywhere in the USA. 

That's a cool college legend John and deserves a term of it's own. "Suburban myth?" "Mythos Lyceum"? 

Ideas gang?

Frosty The Lucky. 

Thanks Frosty.

South Carolina recognized common law marriage up until earlier in the year when she had her last surgery.  No more going from then on, but it didn't "nullify" those already in effect.

25 minutes ago, Frosty said:

there's no such thing as "common law" anything in the USA

Yes and no. Legally, a "common law jurisdiction" is one that relies on judicial decisions and precedents, as opposed to a "civil law jurisdiction" that relies on written laws and constitutions. The US has a mixed law system, with both precedent and written law playing important roles and with the Constitution acting as the ultimate authority. (This is a dramatic oversimplification, but it does highlight the importance of precedent in the interpretation of the law.)

That said, "common law marriage" as such is very much a thing, and still legal in seven states and the District of Columbia. While the claim that they evolved from the common law of England is tenuous, they do share the common law theme of not messing with something that already exists.

Okay, It's too deep a rabbit hole to search for details. I cede that common law is one of the basic systems used here. Though it's evolved significantly, judicial and civil law are the two basic legal systems practiced here (USA) and judicial law is based heavily on the European Common Law system.

I've served on juries and watched the near endless wrangling over points, precedents, etc. till the judge just decided and converted the proceedings from civil to judiciary judgement. Being a judicial judgement meant he had to lay out and explain the case laws involved. It was educational.

I in fact used what I'd learned to have a traffic ticket dismissed. I'd run a red light, I was checking my side mirror for a wild child driver, looked back up to see the light change from yellow to red about 100' ahead of me so I didn't touch the brakes and ran it. I had good reasons for not attempting to hammer the brakes, I was too close, winter roads are especially slick at stop lights where engine heat melts the moisture from exhaust, empty pickup and as it turned out a mis timed yellow light cycle they're supposed to remain yellow for more than 3 seconds.

After listening to a bunch of people, some with lawyers try to wheedle argue and generally lie their ways out of a ticket. It was a loooonng day in court till I was called. I walked down, was sworn, heard the charges and plead guilty. The judge asked me to explain, I described the conditions, traffic and apparent short yellow light. I ran the light I didn't even touch my brakes, I judged that to be a greater hazard than blowing through an unoccupied intersection a traffic ticket and points didn't measure up. 

He shook his head, gave me a big smile and said, "I will NOT penalize a man for telling the truth, charge dismissed without prejudice. When I turned to leave the officer that cited me was standing at the table behind me so I stopped, shook hands and told him no hard feelings, you did your job, thanks for being out there.

To meet the metal content rule. The defendant in the one aggravated assault, armed robbery, assault with a instrument, animal cruelty and a few other charges was led out of court in handcuffs after we found him guilty of all charges. We were also empaneled for sentencing and though I lived maybe 4 miles from the courthouse was sequestered for 2 days. 

The other times I've served weren't anything like interesting though insisting the officer provide the calibration cert for his radar gun was kind of cool. Turned out the officer hadn't calibrated it in quite a while as was required daily. I'm pretty sure his supervisors had words. I'm very pro-police but I want, honest, competent, un-lazy police who keep their poop tightly grouped.

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

There are 9 states plus the District of Columbia where you can establish a common law marriage.  It is just another way of establishing the legal relationship of a marriage along with civil (courthouse) and religious (church) marriage.  Generally, there are no magic rules except that a couple must "hold themselves out as married."  This means doing things like introducing your partner as "This is may wife/husband X." and doing "married" things like filing joint tax returns and naming the other person as a beneficiary or a joint property owner.

This comes up when it is necessary to establish whether someone was legally married after they are deceased.  Because there are often very different rules regarding dividing up an estate for spouses than for "partners."

And where a lot of folk get wrapped around the axle is that they do not realize that there is no such thing as "common law divorce."  They think that because they established a marriage all by themselves that they can just dissolve it the same way.  Not true.  Some years ago there was a case in the news where a Denver Fire Department Captain died in his 50s or 60s of a heart attacks while at a fire.  His pension and on duty death benefit amounted to a significant amount of money for his spouse.  He had been married for 20 or 30 years.  However, a woman appeared and was able to prove that she and the deceased had established a common law marriage years before in their early 20s and had never been rormally divorced.  So, legally, the 2d marriage was never valid and he was still the legal husband of #1.  So, she should get the payout.  Legally she was correct.  IIRC, wife #1 and wife #2 eventually came to some settlement and split the payout.

Also, if a couple establishes a common law marriage in a state where you can do that, it is still a valid marriage if they move to a different state where you cannot establish a common law marriage because of the "full faith and credit" clause of the US Constitution where a contract made in one state is valid in all states.

Good information George, thank you for that.

My high school had a course called "Senior Law" (mandatory for all 12th graders) that discussed a lot of practical legal matters, including basic criminal law, how to file your taxes, and so on. I remember there being an aside about common law marriage and the Marvin v. Marvin case about palimony. 

14 hours ago, George N. M. said:

There are 9 states plus the District of Columbia where you can establish a common law marriage.

If my Googling is correct, there are nine states that recognize common law marriage, but only seven where you can establish one. New Hampshire recognizes common law marriages for purposes of inheritance, and Utah allows people in common law marriages to petition the courts to recognize those marriages as legally binding. As I have frequently stated, though, I am NOT a lawyer!

Thank you George for your professional expertise. It sure trumps my poor understanding and opinions.

Frosty The Lucky.