Hello again from the Monster’s lair!
I want you to know that I am truly pleased to make your acquaintanceship. So, if you didn’t know already, my name is “Monster”. I suppose if I was on a Marquee it might be “The Monster”, but this ain’t show business – so “Monster” alone will do. (BTW – Never ‘Old Monster’ or ‘Grumpy Old Monster’ as some miscreants who remain unnamed might have you believe.) That’s me on the right in the first picture below, me with a devilish little critter peeking out from under my hatband. Monster’s not my given name, but it’s what most of my friends call me.
I do hope you’ll consider me to be a friend, I’m a friendly monster afterall. I behave and never bite those who don’t ask politely for it first. If you’d like a further introduction, I can tell you my astrological sign is Cancer, and I like long walks in the forest, the desert, canyons, mountains, and on the beach. Random Tidbit – I once lived and worked on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon more than 35 years ago. Despite hiking several of the named trails at the Grand Canyon, I felt like I’d barely scratched the surface of that magnificent gorge.
My wife, and partner in crime/grime, is “girl”. Obviously, she’s the good looking one in the wedding picture a few paragraphs down. What can I say, I’m a lucky Monster!
Every woman should have a bit of mystery about her, so her sun-sign and origin story are all secrets, perhaps even “state secrets” since I used to work for the government. If you ever found out the details, I’d probably have to kill you, and that could mess up a couple of hours on a really nice afternoon. I’d rather be hiking.
Once upon a time (isn’t that the best way to start a story about a girl and her Monster?) in the ancient territory of Davenport in the land of Iowa, Monster and girl met at an event for an alternative lifestyle to be named later. The girl was from the far away land of Indiana where people, beliefs, and customs are different. One day, for no obvious reason, girl picked up her family and moved to Iowa. The primary thing that attracted her to Iowa? It wasn’t Indiana!
It was not too terribly long after the move that our girl and Monster met. The girl and Monster promptly fell off a cliff (in love) and were married a short 9 years later. Our wedding was epic! OMG – girl looked so very beautiful, and Monster was quite debonair his own self.
Our wonderful families worked to make everything very special and very beautiful, and her best friend got ordained just to be able to bring us together in matrimony. Two of girl’s three children were able to attend (we all know that two out of three ain’t bad.) Her eldest son gave her away and looked so proud to be both walking her down the aisle and being my best man.
Our honeymoon was pretty inspiring too. I would have said it was incredibly inspiring, but eventually we had to go home. It seems that’s the problem with most adventures, no matter how long you are away on glorious travels, eventually you have to go home. Ain’t that a shame?
On the drive home I had a realization – driving home sucks – and I wasn’t even the one doing the driving. It’s always nice to get home to my domicile and relax, but I’m at the age where relaxing too long has negative consequences. You work your whole life to get to the age where you can retire. Then by the time you retire your body is all worn out. For folks who don’t work physical jobs, I suppose it’s their brains that “melt down” at retirement.
Well I am determined that my story will not end that way. I did my time working as a community organizer and in politics. I never want to see or think about those worlds’ again. If the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket, it doesn’t bother me one whit!
I think I’ll be hiking, thank you very much!
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