Year 25 and a B-25

Today is Adriane’s and my 25th wedding anniversary. TWENTY FIVE. I typically stay away from the philosophizing and schmaltz of public social media posts, but note that a quarter of a century marriage earns me a long post in praise of this woman to whom I owe so much in life, career, and future. I've learned so much.

Well, I think this marriage is meant to be, because this is a woman who last weekend scrambled around on a cliff face near the Buffalo River with me searching for chunks of a crashed B-25 bomber. She even at least feigned interest in my pointing out such things as the zinc chromate paint they used on the wheel well parts and how this other piece was “probably a hydraulic line,” and all that.

She probably had one of those "how did I end up here?!" moments, and I know I sure did.

It really seems to me now, and did soak in for some time after we were married, that I, even at age 28, was still in a sort of beta version of myself in 1999. They say each person should bring to a relationship not 50% each to total up to 100% but instead bring 100% each to the relationship if it's got a shot, of course, and we’ve worked on that, and we work on that, and I think we’ve upgraded ourselves and our relationship constantly through the years.?What a man can learn from a wife. Wow!

Just before we were married in the Mesa Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1999, she took one look at my “salary” and asked when I was going to go to graduate school. I had a BA in Journalism and was working at a very early online-newspaper startup in Tucson called StarNet and thought I was very cool. (I didn’t have the mohawk and hip clothes some of the other people had, having returned recently from doing two years of mission work in Italy, but I think I was mohawk adjacent.)

The thought had never occurred to me to get a master’s degree and I told her, therefore, it wasn’t something I was going to do. Meanwhile, it became more clear that she/we had very big plans of children, a minivan, a nice house, travel and tons of fun and that my web design wages were not going to do it at $17,000.

So, she inquired with me pretty frequently about getting a master’s degree, which I snippily rebuffed, being comfortable designing bad online yellow pages microsites for local businesses. One day, though, it so happened that I had an amazing idea to get a master’s degree, and she was so excited with my decision and truly sage forethought. I had called up Professor Karen Zimmerman at the University of Arizona and started the process of applying to the MFA in Visual Communication, which I then completed about 4 years later while working full time for Mike Holcomb, my boss at the UA who facilitated a great schedule for me. Adriane simultaneously completed her Master of Music in Music Education. Working full time (she also office job working part-time), getting master's degrees, two babies, church positions, what crazy years.?

Around Thanksgiving in 2004, while sitting in a dusty intersection waiting for the light to turn green, seeing the Tucson temperature at about 900 degrees, we decided to move on to literally greener pastures and ended up in the greatest part of the country, where I interviewed with and got to know my amazing early colleagues here such as Marilyn Nelson and Larry Swartwood and the other School of Art faculty. Who would have thought. Arkansas!

For context, Adriane Parry Hapgood is a descendant of at least 8 ancestors who pulled their belongings on handcarts across the plains of the United States out to Utah, one of whom, her direct great grandfather John Parry, founded the (Mormon) Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. These are people in her "collective DNA" who don’t sit still, with a long life and a lot of territory to explore.

Adriane decided not to work while our four girls were little and loved being with them every day up on our little house on the hill in Fayetteville, before starting her music teaching career at their elementary school. She is well-known as a truly special and connecting music teacher at Root Elementary School in Fayetteville for so many kids, and has recently added being a realtor at Collier and Associates. She never stops evolving and doing things, and what an example for me.

I could hashtag all of the things I have literally learned from this teacher-turning-realtor gal, but there would be too many. A few that have directly impacted my life and career:

• Pushing myself
• Meeting and getting to know new people
• Loving people
• Embracing change
• Taking personal and career risks
• Having confidence
• Constantly learning
• Making connections
• Look for serving
• Raising adults not children
• Listening and talking

I’m not sure what version of myself I am at present, but I know it’s built on sharing our input for each other and aligning our goals and working hard and praying together at night. Definitely not, I hope, still at version 1.0 after all this time. We have loved our careers and life here in Fayetteville, and it’s been anything but comfortable and that has been the whole point and I owe so much to my loving and lovely wife. How this be-mulleted schmuck got so lucky...

Maybe the symbolism of searching for scattered pieces of a World War II-era bomber crash isn’t the best for an anniversary trip, but maybe it is? Because we like to get interested in each other’s passions. For every gripping, gripping description of the B-25 bomber in the Doolittle Raid I provide, she sees and tells me who in our life needs a visit or a hug and I listen and love going. Of course, we hiked to the crash site holding hands, laughing and tripping and discussing work things and our sweet and ambitious daughters and then later sat over a really good pizza at the Jasper Pizza Company near our rental house where we looked at the upcoming years and at our career goals of real estate (her) and writing novels (me) and beyond.

I have loved my career as a professor and designer and living in this great town and none of it would have happened without the wise advice and persistence of my wife.

While it may seem that I planned a 25th Anniversary getaway trip with my wife to see not a B-24 or B-26 crash site, it really was dumb luck that the "25" element matched up. In fact, did I, a lover of words and puns and connections and wordplay, just now realize that the B-25 number matches the number of years we have been married? YES! Wow. You probably saw it already, savvy reader who has maybe slogged all the way through this post. (You should also know Adriane kept calling it a B-52, which is a slightly different airplane.)

Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear any comments of positive things people have learned in their marriages! Year 26 has begun for me, and eternity is a long time, and there's obviously a lot yet to learn!