Not only was Momma not upset when I chose to stay up all night to read a book, she would encourage it even if it was a school night.  Daddy did not encourage this behavior as he didn’t understand it.  He believed that even if one of us kids stayed up all night reading, we still had to go to school the next day.  Momma would’ve let us stay home and sleep it off, but not Daddy.  He was as dependable and stern as they came and he loved us kids, but it was different kind of loving than Momma’s.  We needed both kinds, although we didn’t always understand that.

Momma and Daddy being together was a puzzlement to many people because they were so different.  Momma was the dreamer and never quite had both feet  firmly on the ground.  Daddy however was all about reality and would take what was in front of him and make the best of it, like the toys he built in his plunder house.  He didn’t stop at the possibility but pushed it forward into reality.  Momma liked the safety of her dreams and the adventures she had between pages.

Daddy first saw Momma at a poetry reading.  This was an unlikely place for Daddy to be as he has never really taken to poetry, except for one venture into trying to write it.  That part comes later in the story.  But he was there in the basement of the coffee house all those years ago, looking for his kid brother, who had a bad habit of sneaking out of the house when he was supposed to be in bed and running off to all manner of protests and speeches.  Tonight he had snuck into the beanery to hear the latest in poetry the locals of his generation had to offer.

Daddy was quite  a few years older than his brother and had become adept at keeping his eyes and ears open for such happenings in our little town so that when his kid brother turned up missing he knew where to look.  Daddy overheard two college students talking about the poetry reading in the grocery store, and now here he was scanning the crowd.  His nostrils were filled with smells of cigarette smoke and over-roasted coffee and his feet made a soft snuck snuck sound as he waded through the basement people, looking for his kid brother.

The light was dim and Daddy had to walk slowly and study every face to find his brother’s.  Before Daddy’s eyes found his brother, they lighted on my mother’s face.  She wasn’t dressed as everyone else in the place was, blue jeans and colorful shirts.  Momma wasn’t into the fads or the fashion, she wanted to hear the words because they fed her in places food couldn’t. Her dark hair, rather than being stick straight and parted in the middle, was  done up in a long braid that ran clear down her back so that she could almost sit on the end of it.  Tiny pieces escaped the braid and framed her face in little curly tendrils.  A garden of freckles played across her nose, her eyes were green and seemed to glow in her pale skin.

I know all these details, not because of Momma, but because of Daddy.  He may not have been a dreamer, but he knew his wife when he saw her and he recognized her at that instant, sitting in that sticky, smelly coffee house basement listening to poetry.  Daddy tells this story with a bit of mist in his eyes, the day he found his life’s partner in, what for him, was the most unexpected of places.  Normally, Daddy wouldn’t have been in a coffee house or anywhere near poetry as he had no use for such things.  He could brew his coffee at home and the funny papers gave him all the entertainment from words he wanted at that point in his life.  If he hadn’t had to find his kid brother, Momma and Daddy may never have met.  Actually, Daddy thinks they would’ve met at some point or another.  After all, Momma was meant to be his wife and he would’ve had to run into her somewhere along the way.

Daddy placed his hand on Momma’s shoulder and described his little brother, asking if Momma had seen him.  Momma turned her wide green eyes on Daddy and said, “No.”

“Well, my name is Horace and my kid brother is Wayne.  If you happen to see him, get my attention.  My mother wants him home.  He’s too young to be out here tonight.”

“Alright,” Momma said and turned her attention back to the poetry.

Daddy was hoping to get her name, but she hadn’t offered it.  In fact, Momma doesn’t remember this part of the story at all.  Some of us kids wonder if it’s even true, but Daddy never lied or embellished his stories.  That was Momma’s trick.  Momma was so enthralled with the poetry, she erased Daddy from her memory as soon she looked away from him.