You’ve heard it, opposites attract. My parents were just about the most opposite you could find. And, I never even thought about that until just now, while sitting down to write about their relationship. Your parents are the only parents you have, so you don’t stop to think, “What did they see in each other?”
My mother was quiet, elegant and intelligent. My father was loud, lovable and crass. Taste was not exactly his strong suit except, of course, his great taste in women.
They met at a party. He saw this stunning, very young, exotic looking woman modern-dancing. Alone. Seductively. Twenty years older, he was intrigued.
Cliff Notes to get you up to speed: They dated. He knocked her up. He said he didn’t want kids. She was set to have an abortion. Her family strong-armed him or he had a change of heart. Or both. She had their first child, my brother Alan but first they had a quickie wedding. In Vegas, where else? First meal in their home together, my mother cooked. My father complained about the way she made the eggs. She threw the whole pan of eggs at him. Two years after the first child, she was pregnant with me.
After decades of biting into and spitting out mouthfuls of mealy mushy
flavorless fuzzy fruit sold as ‘prime peaches’, suddenly this year the
peach crop is reminding me of the juicy beauties I enjoyed 40 years
ago. Almost certainly it’s because I’ve been getting my peaches at
local farmer’s markets from growers who actually let the fruit ripen on
the tree before hauling them off for sale. 
My dad wasn’t much of a cook! He even burned the bacon. His idea of making baked beans was to put them in a pan of boiling water – in the can with the top still on. This might actually work, although the only time I remember him doing it, he forgot about them, the water boiled down, the can exploded (EXPLODED!!!), luckily no one was in the kitchen at the time, and a lot of the baked beans flew up to the ceiling and rested there. I do not remember if my mother thought this was funny.
Naively, I asked for larks. The grocery clerk seemed perplexed.
Several years ago (about four), I threw a surprise birthday party for the Wild Boar. All I really wanted was for him to be "surprised" and he was. I ordered formal invitations and sent them out with the words, "No Gifts" on the bottom.