—
On June 17, 1978, a brutally hot and humid Missouri day, a couple of hundred people gathered for a wedding.
Inside the church, which we belatedly discovered lacked air conditioning, the decorations had begun to wilt.
Behind the scenes, things were frantic. The best man’s tuxedo coat had to be flown in from Omaha; there was a mighty struggle to locate enough large fans to cool the sluggishly oppressive atmosphere. Oh yes, and the last-minute scramble to locate the marriage license.
Despite the ado, the ceremony went off without a hitch, and after my dad pronounced us husband and wife, Cheryl and I gleefully strode down the aisle and into our new life together.
I was on top of the world. I was now a husband, convinced I had arrived as a man, and there was nothing else the world could teach me.
Now, 31 years later, I realize how foolishly naive I was. I thought I knew it all.
In fact, I knew nothing.
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