Bill Dalton: Okey-dokey

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

By the time you read to the end of this column, assuming you do, there’s a good chance I could be dead.

No, I don’t have Stage 4 anything — not yet anyway. And to the best of my knowledge, no one has put out a contract on my life — not yet anyway. (But the day ain’t over, right?)

No, it’s because this column is about a woman, and not just any woman. It’s about my wife.

I know, I know. Any sane person would stop now. But after 55 years of marriage — that’s 55 in a row to the same person — I finally need some marital advice.

Let’s start at the beginning. It may help you understand why this might be my last day on Earth.

My wife attended parochial schools in Holland, and I attended public schools in Fennville. We didn’t know each other existed until we were freshmen in high school.

I’d already had a couple of girlfriends by then. They were sweet. I can’t imagine what they saw in me, other than that I was cool, but enough about me.

When my future wife showed up for the first day of high school, I was smitten. (I have no clue what that word means, but I’m afraid to look it up.)

Yet smitten is how I felt then and still do to this day. I don’t know why, other than there is just something about her. She’s smittening, which I concede isn't even a word.

She must have noticed me, too, because when I asked her to the homecoming dance, she surprisingly said yes.

Call me lucky, or not. Because years later, I discovered one of my so-called friends had warned her that if she went out with me, I was going to “blow in her ear.”

To this day, I have no idea why anyone would blow in anyone’s ear, but years later she admitted it kind of frightened her. Maybe that’s why after our homecoming date we were “one and done.”

She didn’t go out with me again until we were seniors, and only after she had dated all the Scandinavian foreign exchange students in West Michigan.

I’d always suspected we hadn’t dated again because I hadn’t blown in her ear. She insisted it was because I was “too cool” to call her afterward, and she’d assumed maybe I didn’t like her.

She was wrong. I was smitten for life.

Fast forward through high school to a senior year of going steady, to a long and lonely freshman year attending college 150 miles from where she was attending college, to a whirlwind engagement and a church wedding.

Over the years there were children, jobs, mortgages, marital ups and downs, and finally blessed retirement. We’re still together, bent but unbroken.

Until last night. Which brings us to my need for marital advice.

After I’d had a glass or two of wine, I told my wife: “I love you, more than you’ll ever know.”

Why I said that, I’ll never know. But she got mad.

Now you understand why I may have a death wish, because I need to know: What’s wrong with telling someone you love them more than you’ll ever know?

She said it made her suspicious that I was hiding something. (Trust me, I’ve got nothing to hide. In fact, “trust me” are the very words I said to my bride just before she got pregnant.)

I explained that perhaps I was simply trying to be romantic, because saying “I love you” is de rigueur for couples who’ve been married a long time and maybe it doesn’t mean as much to repeat it over and over. (Trust me, it does.)

But here’s the scary part and why I need advice. When I told her, “I love you, more than you’ll ever know,” she replied:

“Okey-dokey.”

Seriously?

Now here’s the sad part. I replied:

“Okey-dokey.”

Then I rolled over and went to sleep.

Is our marriage in trouble?

Please tell me it isn’t because, at 75, I’m not sure I’ve got enough wind left in my sails to blow in anybody’s ear.

I really hope it isn’t, more than you’ll ever know.

Okey-dokey?

— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and worked for several Michigan newspapers. He spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His novel “The Bank Game” is available from Amazon along with “Dalton’s Bend.”

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