Do y’all
know what a “goober” is? It means a lot of things to a lot of people. However,
for the purposes of this article, it means something along the lines of a “goof-ball”.
I’m a goober. I can stick both feet
in my mouth with plenty of room for another pair. I can really do the dumbest things sometimes (okay, all
of the time). It’s as though I can’t find my ample butt with both hands.
One thing that I’ve learned is that even a goober like me can
have incredible “luck” in spite of myself. I have a great job. I have great
readers. I have some great friends. I’ve even had the privilege to meet some very
interesting, as well as famous, people. I’ve also been to some pretty cool places on this beautiful
planet.
However, the one accomplishment
that tops all my in-spite-of-being-a-goober incredible luck is having been married to my wonderful first (and only) wife,
Rhonda. This week we’ll be celebrating 29 years of marriage.
Here’s how we met: It was at a district
youth meeting at a small church around 1970. I first laid eyes on a beautiful girl whose name I later learned
was Rhonda McCullough. She caught my attention because, even at the tender age of 11 or 12 years old, she
was (and still is) the cutest darn girl I’d ever seen.
Now, if this was a romance novel or a Hollywood screenplay, the next few lines would
say something like: we instantly met, fell in love, and married right out of high school. But
this isn’t, and it’s me, so things happened a bit differently. Being the afore mentioned goober,
I forgot about her until I would see her again at other youth functions.
I won’t bore you with the details but the bottom-line is that we didn’t begin
to date until a few years later – 1976, to be exact. We’d break up, get serious with others
and then get back together. She was my date to my Senior prom as well as other normal and abnormal “dates”
(I took her with me to a funeral of a fellow high school student that neither of us knew. Smooth, huh?).
Ultimately, there came a point
where, after four years of on-again/off-again dating, I had to decide if we were going to get married or not.
Being a typical guy, and quickly approaching uber-gooberness of mythical proportions, I didn’t know if I was
ready to be “tied down” but I sure as heck knew that I didn’t want to live life without her.
So, on June 21, 1980, I was privileged to become the husband of Rhonda McCullough and make her my Mrs. Patterson.
Four years later, our daughter,
Lacie, was born. It didn’t take too long to realize that Lacie was my, to quote Keith Richards, “little
rock ‘n roll”. But that’s for another article.
Again, if our life was a Hollywood script, it would read that life
was all roses and that we were living happily ever after. But we all know that life isn’t that way.
Through job losses, financial trials, and other challenges of life, we have remained married and true to each other.
Rhonda is not only my incredible wife but the best friend a uber-goober could ever have or deserve.
An ancient Middle Eastern wise man once wrote, “He who
finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor with the Lord.”
Speaking only for myself, I have to say that I couldn’t agree with him more.
Rhonda, to steal some more lines from Mr. Stewart:
