“There’s nothing you can know…”
Dateline: Shores of the Potomac
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
– Oscar Wilde
“I’m really glad that most of our songs were about love….”
– Paul McCartney
Love, matters.
Love is the checkered flag of the human race.
It is why, I believe, this rock in space, came alive.
This is a love story, plain and simple, if you are the hook and bullets kind of person, avert your eyes now.
Look around, listen around, read around, these times specifically we need more love stories, we shout violence and yet only whisper words of love.
We have lost our minds.
We are about to lose our hearts.
Then goes the soul.
Flip through the TV channels, scroll through social media, the children of our children will know us as the Scream Generation, and well they should.
THIS IS US.
And yet as you scroll through the noise there comes this:
There comes a simple, poignant, respectful message of love called: Conversation from The Love Seat.
“…that isn’t known…”
“I was 18, Robin was 19 when we got married.” Randy is sitting in a recliner trying to cut a sliced tomato in half on the dinner plate that is moving precariously around in his lap.
Robin is in a chair across the room also eating dinner, she is wearing white pants and is eating off the plate in her lap, she will finish dinner stain free.
Randy, will not.
Across from me, sprawled out on the top part of a trundle bed, legs a foot or two longer than the width of the bed is Randy and Robin’s 15-year-old son, Laker. Sitting next to me on a pullout couch/bed making wisecracks to me under his breath, 10 “just say I’m 11” year old son, Oakley.
I have known both boys most of their lives. They are smart, honest and funny comfortable around me, sassy in a good way, my way, both always give me hugs.
Laker is playing a video game on his phone, Oakley is watching the Olympics on a TV hanging on the wall. We are in an efficiency style one room B&B without one of those “B’s” because “we prefer to eat with just ourselves, no offense.”
None taken, I get it, it’s why I can’t get my wife to stay in a B&B, breakfast with strangers.
Randy is done with the tomato: “Robin and I met in high school, in ninth grade, it was a Christian school and she was new to it, when I first saw her, db, you know, I kind of knew, just kind of knew.”
All I do is turn my head and look at Robin, as a friend she knows the question that I don’t even have to ask. Her answer, exactly, “Um, no.”
Both boys, and Randy, laugh.
I just smile, write the “um, no” down knowing that they are about coming up to their 25th wedding anniversary.
Robin: “Why do this Conversation on the Love Seat? We just started doing it as a whim, you know, then folks started telling us how much they liked it and so we just kept doing it, you know it’s like our marriage, it works because we always want to be young at heart.”
To which I write in my reporter’s notebook let’s hope the young of heart can fix what us old of hearts have messed up.
“…nothing you can see…”
The biggest part of life, are the little parts of life.
I watch as Randy gently runs his hand through Robin’s hair as the wind blows it into her face.
I watch as Robin smiles at every glance that Randy sends her way.
Robin: “Love is all about passion, passion for each other, passion for marriage, passion for life.”
Randy: “Our love, our deep love started early in our marriage, six months after getting married my colon ruptured, I almost died, I was sick for nine months, three major surgeries, we basically began our married life with Robin taking care of me, nursing me, I had a colostomy bag attached to me and here’s this 19-year-old girl nursing me…”
As I turned and glanced Robin’s way you could see for just a flash the face of the 19-year-old wife, for an instant, just a moment the ever present smile was gone as the memory of those newlywed days played out on a screen only Robin could see.
Then, in almost a whisper from behind the red lipstick, “It grew us up real quick.”
“…that isn’t shown…”
It is impossible to talk of the Howell’s and not talk of Jesus.
Comes this from Randy: “Love starts with Jesus. God comes first then each other comes second.”
To be honest I have trouble writing that, deleted that quote a couple of times, to be more honest, not sure I believe it, believe that a God would want to come first.
The Howell’s, all of the Howell’s are very spiritual people, I trust in them that they will always do the right thing even when maybe the right thing isn’t the best thing for them.
Love, the actual feeling, the actual theory of it, the concept of love is actually the only reason I think that a God may in fact be possible.
I search for meaning, search for this concept of God, ask for proof, ask for a miracle so that I may believe, but then when I look into my wife’s eyes I get the only proof I need, or so I hope.
So I hope there be this thing called, God.
Randy: “God is the most important thing in our lives.”
And every Howell head in the small B&B room, shakes Yes.
“…there’s nowhere you can be…”
We have borrowed a love seat, the front porch of the B&B, they are about to shoot the latest version of their conversation on said chair.
Here’s the production notes for this shoot:
Robin: “I need two pillows, one underneath the arm that holds my phone while I shoot the piece, and one for my other arm so I have something to lean on that’s not Randy.”
Randy: “Yep.”
Today’s production will focus on Robin’s hair (earlier when I asked if she was always blonde she told me exactly this, “I was brownish blonde before I became this blondish brown,” to which I just smiled, will focus on B&B living, cellphone txt etiquette and some Potomac practice and bait stuff.
Here you go:
Easily the most honest thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time.
“…that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”
I am an outlaw gang biker by heart.
I am a flower child hippie by heart.
I know hate.
I know love.
Love wins, love has to win.
Give these guys who run this website about fishing props that they will also run love stories, they need not do that, but we need them to do it to help balance the world out. Props also to Chris Mitchell the B.A.S.S. Internet guru who somehow takes my whacked out ideas and gets them to work. [Editor’s note: Not a guru, db. Just a guy with some embed codes.]
Think of the message our children see most days, I don’t believe in my heart, can’t believe, that we are that mean.
There is no future in mean.
Mean, always, ends badly.
For our children we must tell stories of love.
For our children we must show them what love is, we must be their example of what love is, if our example is only one of meanness, we get what we sow.
What we sow.
Be not stale in your marriage, be not stale in your love for others and this planet we all share.
And listen, listen close to the adults who have passion for each other, passion for life, but even more so, listen to not only the young at heart, but those with young hearts:
15-year-old Laker Howell: “My parents are great because they are like kids a lot, sure they are parents but there is still this child in each of them and that child has fun, and that child loves life, and that child loves us no matter what.”
And as I turned to my left on the couch, 11 year old Oakley just looked at me and smiled.
Lose not your child heart.
“…it’s easy.”
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles
“Love is the answer, and you know that for sure…”
– John Lennon
db
“In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Paul McCartney