Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Clem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and monarchs. Today, this is going to be part two on how I met my current husband. And you're going to be hearing from him. So he's here with me, but I'm going to start out just letting you know how initially went, and then he will weigh in with his side of the story and how he felt it went.
So, in the last episode, I had moved all my furniture and everything in and moved all his things to the basement, including my silverware and my dishes. And I took his dishes out, which is so terrible when I look back on it. But, hey, that's how it goes. Pushy broad, right?
And he came home, and he actually was really, really happy with the way things looked. He was really happy. He just wanted to make sure that I didn't sell his stuff, which. Which was completely appropriate. Right?
So then we started living together, and it was going pretty good, I think. You know, I was a nurse, so I was working different hours. I had different days off during the week. I was still doing visiting nursing at the time when I moved in with him. And so that was working out pretty good, because if I was on call, then I would be off during the week. I would get home, and I would walk his dog every day in the woods. And that was going great, too. The dog, he managed to work long hours. He's an engineer, so he would go into work at 07:00 in the morning, but sometimes he wouldn't even come home till 10:00 at night. But once we started getting more comfortable with each other and getting to know each other a little better, he came. He would come home earlier, like, between five and six. Sometimes I would cook dinner for us, and we would sit down and we would talk about everything.
Hope. We talked about politics. It was during a presidential election when I moved in with him, and it was during the time when Ross Perot was running for president. And both of us thought we really needed a businessman, so we kind of agreed with that. We talked about that a little bit. We both had the same financial planner, which was so weird. I mean, what are the chances of that? And then we talked about our families. We both came from very similar families. I had one brother. He had one brother. There was a lot of commonalities between us. And I think the thing that he appreciated about me is that I was really active. So I had my bike with me, and I rode my bike all the time, everywhere. There was a little loop that he taught me to ride and we were out in the country.
His house was actually seven or 8 miles out on a three acre farm, and it was like seven to 8 miles to the nearest grocery store. So he showed me a little loop to ride with my bike. That was really quite challenging, but I would do that quite often. And so he could see that I was pretty active, and we were getting along pretty good. Things were going well between us, I would say. His girlfriend would come a lot of times on the weekend, and I really liked her, too. She was so nice. She was an engineer, too.
But I remember one time specifically, Craig had decided that he wanted to make a picnic table. And so he was out there working on making the picnic table, and I was in the house, and he came in and he said, I don't have a board or two that I'm missing. I need you to go down to Home Depot for me and pick up a couple boards. And so, yeah, let's go. I said, come on, I'll help you. I'll help you finish it up. Let's go. So we went to this Home depot together. We got the boards, brought them back, brought them out to him, and then I stayed out, and I actually helped him build the picnic table. But she went back in the house and she was watching tv. So I think that's when Craig started to think, oh, this woman is a lot more active than my girlfriend. And he's from Vermont, so he's used to going skiing, mountain biking.
He did motocross with, in tournaments or whatever they call it, championships. So he did a lot of stuff like that. And then here is me. I've always been really outdoorsy. I'm walking his dog, I'm riding my bike. And so I think he started looking at me in a different light, but I didn't really know it.
I really wasn't paying that much attention. I mean, I had been living up there for two years, and I had gotten freedom into my veins after being married to my first husband. So I was not looking for anything at all at that point or ever again, actually, because he said to me, what are, what are some of your goals in life? And I'm like, well, I want to buy a house, and I'm going to be like mother Teresa. I want to give back. And he goes, I'm pretty sure that that ship has sailed. One. I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? He goes, you've already been married. I go, I'm not talking about partnering with someone. I'm talking about having, like, a foundation and maybe having an orphanage or something like that, I want to be in the spirit of mother Teresa. So I did get that point across to him, but I should have kind of understood that he was trying to say to me, are you interested in dating again?
But I'm so oblivious to things like that, I'm telling you, it's ridiculous. When I think about it, I have no real understanding when someone is. It was interested in me. I have no clue about that at all whatsoever.
So I'm gonna turn the mic over to Craig now, and you're gonna hear his side of the story, which, let me just warn you right now, it doesn't sound a thing like what I just told you, so be prepared.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Oh, here I am. Um, is this thing live?
I guess I'm. I'm recording right now. Right.
Oh, well, let me just tell you a story. This. This is my side of the story. And it may be a little different than what dawn had said. So, first of all, I did advertise for a female to my home, because in the past, when I was rooming with some of my high school friends, the house never looked clean enough. And I always felt like I was the guy doing the dishes and vacuuming the floors. And I go, this isn't working.
So I left that situation and went to, uh, advertise or. Or to actually look for a room for rent. And it says, we gotta. We gotta change something up here. And there's probably someone out there, uh, that needs a male roommate in a female owned or a female, uh, you know, sublet. So I did find that, and I actually thought that was one of the better living situations I had in a very, very long time. So when I finally stopped renting and finally got the job and the money to buy my first home, I says, I gotta find a female roommate because I know this is gonna work out a lot better than working, living with a bunch of friends or coworkers. So dawn knocked on the door. We set up a time where she could come up and see me. I had advertised and. And she responded, and she came up and knocked on her door. And I saw this little thing on my front side doorstep, actually, and I go, hello, who's this? This is Donna come there to look at your house. And I go, well, come on in.
So she looked around and kind of felt me out and made sure that I wasn't a threat to her.
So the interview process went pretty well, and we agreed that this was going to work out. We signed all the papers and she said she was able to move in at a later date. And that later date was a time when I wasn't going to be in town, so I was on a business trip. So she says, I'll take care of everything. Just leave me a key, and I'll make sure everything's moved in and get all settled in.
So I come back one late evening after a plane trip. I'm sure I was tired, and I come through the door, and I see that everything has been changed. And I first thought, where is my stuff? And she goes, oh, um, I put it down in the basement. I go, oh, my God. Is it. Did you, like, throw it out, or is it. Is it still there? Just. Yes, it's still there. I just wanted to make my, make the home feel a little better. And I. So I walked around and I go, yeah, this is pretty nice. It's, you know, a woman's touch. And I, you know, my things were.
Some of my things were there, but. And some of the things that I really wanted there were not there. You know, I had. I'm sure I was living more of a bachelor life, and I had the things I needed. So, you know, a couple plates, a couple forks, a couple knives, a couple chairs, a table, you know, the essential stereo and tvs that everybody had that everybody needed. And things changed quite a bit. So I was quite shocked, but pleasantly surprised and thanked her for what she did.
So at this point, I felt things were going to work out until the first of the next month.
And her first rent check bounced. And she goes, well, just resent it in. I go, well, we have to pay fees all over again. You sure this is going to be good? And she said, yes, it's gonna be good. And we worked. It happened one more time, but we smoothed things out over time.
So as time went on, dawn and I were, you know, in our own lives.
She was working hard at the hospital, and I was working for a semiconductor company and just doing our thing, working late hours, doing what we, you know, young kids do. And it got to a point where, you know, I would have to be doing projects on the weekends and at night when I come home and she'd give me a hand and kind of, I was like, oh, that's interesting. You're helping me out. That's kind of fun.
And we'd spent some long nights just talking about our relationships and kind of just understanding and seeing how each other dealt with, you know, the, the hard times and the good times in life.
So we were connecting in a friendship way and just living our lives.
But there was one event that kind of changed everything.
One weekend we were out in the backyard, I'm sure we had some friends over and we were just picnicking and partying during the day. And I had a little dirt bike that I had been gifted when I was twelve years old from my parents. It was really cool, I was so happy. And she says, take that thing out. And I'm going, what do you mean take that thing out? I says, I know how to ride a motorcycle. And I go, yeah, uh huh, you're a girl, there's no way. And you know, I always dreamt that a girl on a motorcycle I'd marry. And so guess what happened? She got on that motorcycle, said, let's go. And I'm going, I'm gonna ride on the back with you cuz I'm scared to death that you're gonna like hurt yourself. So she on it, I got on the back and she just nailed the throttle, started shifting up, going down to the backfield, they go oh, this is, this is awesome. Oh my God. And you know, we went down the trail and did some other, you know, riding. We got back and I'm going to myself, okay, this is it, I'm gonna ask her to marry me. I don't know when, but I'm gonna.
So one night I was doing a dishes, I don't know, just cleaning the house and she was there and I, and I must have got it in my head, I was, it was the time. And I says, look, I'm gonna marry you. She goes, no you're not. I go, yes I am. She goes, no you're not, cuz I don't want to get married. And I go, yeah. He says, we'll prove it. It says, call your mom right now and tell her you're going to get married. And I go, okay, right now, I will. I call her and my mom goes, oh, this is so nice. You're going to marry your girlfriend. I go, uh uh, no, I'm gonna, I want to marry my roommate. She goes, who is that? And so I told her about Don and everything and she goes, oh my God, that's so awesome.
So you don't just get married.
She said, like I quote, we're not gonna get married. We gotta live a whole year together, have all four seasons together. And I go oh man, all right, whatever, we'll work through it. And turns out she was right, you know, during that time, we joined a church about a mile down the road and set everything up. And by the time 9394. So, September 3, 1994, we walked down the aisle with my, our dog, Amber, and he. She was our flower girl. And we walked down the aisle together and got married. And it was really awesome. We had family, about 30 people. It was really a nice event. And it was about 10:00 in the morning.
And after that, we left the church and we walked down the road, that mile that I talked about in our outfits, and somebody stopped and says, I've never seen a married couple in their. In their outfits walking down this country road. And it was really kind of cool. So went back to the house, had a tent and some wedding cake and some funeral chairs. We borrowed them. It was for free, so we didn't have much money. And we had all of our friends over, and we had a barbecue, and everybody was loving the time together, so they stayed late and they went on a shopping trip and bought a whole bunch of lobster. So we had a lobster boil after that. It's just a really great event and just a really great time.
So I'll leave you down with dawn. She's got a little bit more to tell for you guys. And, um, you know, I might be back again on another podcast, but I gotta say goodbye for now.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Hi, everyone.
So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. He married me because I knew how to ride a motorcycle, okay? But the one thing is, I never knew that. I never in a million years knew that. He didn't say to me that day when I was. Had him hop on the back of the motorcycle, oh, my God, you know how to ride a motorcycle? I'm gonna marry you. He never said that to me. And I never knew until about five years ago when he had a friend over and we were sitting around our fire pit in the backyard, and he tells them the whole story that he just told you. I'm like, what? You married me because I knew how to drive a motorcycle? What the hell? I just. I was just like, you've gotta be crazy.
But that is the truth.
So there were other things that, of course, that went on, you know, it is true.
I'm not very fancy. Both of us have been married previously. He was married to his first wife only six months, but I have been married to my ex husband for nine years. And so I wasn't overjoyed about getting married again. And that is why I did say to him, I got to live through all the seasons with you to see if we can get along. I knew we had a lot in common in, and we still do. I mean, he's just my best friend now. I can't imagine my life without him.
But, you know, there were things. Like both times I got married, no one ever went with me to get a wedding dress. I think the first time I got married, I ordered it from the JCPenney catalog, my wedding dress. And the second time, my mom was kind of excited that I was getting married again. And so she took me to a local bridal shop in Quincy, small town down near Hillsdale.
And I looked at all the dresses. I'm like, oh, good God. Now I'm not very fancy.
I just have to say that out loud. I mean, for me to get dressed up, oh, God, it's just so uncomfortable. I'm just a plain Jane, okay?
So I wouldn't buy any of the dresses my mom wanted to buy. Help me buy a dress so bad. I'm like, no, I can't do it, mom. So I came back to Maine, and I went wedding dress shopping by myself, and I did. His mom wanted me to wear a suit, and I'm like, oh, God, I don't know which would be worse, a wedding dress or a suit.
Can't I just wear jeans and a sweatshirt? That would be fine with me. So terrible. But anyhow, I took myself wedding dress shopping, and I went into a bridal shop that I had seen in south Portland, and I checked out the dresses, and I went to the sail rack, of course, and I found a dress. And the dress had been. I think it started out at, like, $800, and they were selling it for $100.
And I go, well, let me try this one on and see how it fits.
Well, it was, like, four sizes too big for me. But the lady said that she thought she could alter it enough that it would look fine on me, and they would only charge me $50 for the alterations. So, in total, I paid $150 for the dress.
So I got my first dress for $100 and my second dress for $150. Wedding on a budget. Okay.
And I know Craig told you about the chairs. Well, I was working by then. I had left visiting nursing. He said I was working at the hospital, but I wasn't. I was doing visiting nursing. He's actually the one that told me, you should not be driving for a living. He didn't mind me driving a motorcycle, but behind the wheel of a car, he's like, no, no, you. You need to just go somewhere, park the car, go in work, get back in the car, and drive home. So I had, um, started working at a nursing home, and you're going to hear about that nursing home in the next four episodes, because that was such a great place for me.
But, um, they actually let me take a bunch of tables and, um, you know, the fold away leg tables, they were sturdy. And bring them to our house for the wedding reception. So that was good. And then we went to rent a center, and we got a tent. Well, we don't want to pay for the fancy tent, so we paid for, like, a second hand tent. And it was. It was supposed to be white. It was like a dirty white. It looked. Reminded me of an old sailboat, sailcloth kind of thing.
And we put up pink and blue balloons. I had gone to the florist, and I said, I want to have pink and blue baby carnations. That's all I want. I want it to be really minimal and maybe some baby's breath. Okay. The fact that I can even remember this, well, I remember it because everything that I wanted was nothing like what I thought it was going to be. So it's stuck in my memory, believe me. And I said, I want white wicker baskets. That's really what I want. She says, oh, we have some white wicker baskets. That'll be no problem at all. So we go to pick up the flowers, and the baby carnations were okay. They were a little too bright for me. Like, I was thinking a subtle pink and a subtle blue. It was more like neon, I think. Probably glowed in the dark. I'm like, what the heck? And then the wicker baskets were, like, white plastic baskets that you put on a grave site, I swear to God. So I'm like, this is a wedding.
And I'm like, whatever. So I got those for the church. I go, well, they seem funeral flowers in there, and they've seen wedding flowers, I guess this will be fine. So we got those set up, and then the other thing was, we had a farm store around the corner from us, and it was just the greatest farm stand. We used to go there all the time. Well, they had a baker there that did a lot of really great pastries. And so I went there and asked him if he would be willing to do our wedding cake. He said yes, and I told him the colors are pink and blue.
So I was really excited about the cake. And we go to pick up the cake, and it's the same thing as the flowers in the white plastic baskets. I mean, the flowers were. They probably would glow in the dark. Okay. They were so neon. I'm like, there's nothing subtle about any of this. This is like. This is like.
But I didn't really care. We had invited 30 people to the wedding. Oh, yeah. I gotta tell you. And the best part was, we didn't know how we. What chairs we were gonna use. And the nursing home didn't have chairs to go with the table. So, um, they. One of the ladies that I worked with said, hey, you can go to the funeral home. And they have fold away chairs, and one of my friends has done that before, and you can just get the chairs from them, and they don't charge anything. So we went to a funeral home. They said, oh, yes, you can come and pick them up on the day of the wedding. No problem. You know, don't even worry about it. So we go to pick up the chairs, and the chairs are, like, burgundy velvet, and the wood part is gold.
My God. You've got to be kidding me. So here we have this really crappy tent. Tables from a nursing home, chairs from a funeral home, a cake from a farm stand, and white plastic, plastic wicker baskets. I kid you nothing. But like I was saying, we had 30 people. Had invited 30 people. A lot of my family from Michigan came, and it was just great. And then my friend Liz came from Connecticut. I had some friends from Cape Cod. One of the nurses that I worked with came with her husband. Craig's mom and dad came. His cousin came with her husband. Craig's brother was there. My parents, of course, it ended up to be about 30 people. Some of his aunts and uncles were there. And, um. And we had a. We had a great time. We had so much fun. We got married at 10:00 in the morning, much to his mother's dismay. Wait, craig's like, we're gonna. We get married early. We want to get this over with, mom. I'm like, oh, my.
So we got married. We walked home from the church. We got there, we both changed our clothes right into jeans and a sweatshirt. We fired up the grill, and we made chicken, and we had all these sides. Everybody from the family brought food, so it was more like a family picnic kind of thing.
And we just had the best time. And his brother was, like, a DJ for us. And he played. He put all these big speakers around the yard, and he played all this really loud music, but everybody had such a good time. I remember one thing. My mom and dad had brought their dog, and the dog laid in the middle of the kitchen floor the whole time. Everybody walked around the dog. The dog never moved. It was so funny. But like Craig said at the end of the day, when most people should be going home, everybody's like, why do we have to leave? They all had hotel rooms in Portland, Maine. It was about 15 miles away, but they didn't care. They wanted to stay. And so they all went to the grocery store and got lobsters and brought them back. And we had a party up until, like, 1011 o'clock that night. So we were. We were going from ten to ten.
And that is the story of Don and Craig. And we've been married to. For 30 years now. We've been really happily married. It's not like we haven't had our trials and tribulations. I think if I look back on the wedding, that's how our marriage is. It's really, really unexpected. You think that you've got it all figured out and you're gonna have this perfect event, and it's never perfect. It's always neon pink and bright aqua blue staring you in the face.
And, you know, maybe that's not so bad.
Maybe it's not so bad.
Thank you for listening to both of us today. I hope you enjoyed our stories. It's kind of good to get his interpretation of how it went down completely different from what I thought and did not know until about five years ago.
But I hope it lets you know that not everything has to be perfect. I think that's my main message for today.
If you have a story that you want to share with me that you'd like me to tell, please go on my website, milkmon.com. milkmon.com. All one word.
I know there's some issues with our webpage, and we're working with my social media manager right now to get some things straightened out, but you can still email or text me for those of you that have my phone number, but my personal email is D, as in Don Clem Klem, the number one att.net. you can text me on that or email me on that, too. And that's a good way for you to get connected until the next time.
