I dug this post up from my previous blog because Mark and I have recently been re-inspired to tell the stories of our adventures together. Mark has especially been bitten by the storytelling bug of late. He recounted a particularly painful crush he had in high school at The Monti StorySlam in Durham earlier this month. You can see it on his blog. Now he is planning to podcast some of his brand of story (this is quite appropriate since his father was a radio DJ starting in the 50’s and 60’s and was able to spin quite a few yarns of his own on the air).

Last week one of our friends at grad school was surprised to find that an old high school picture had found its way onto the cover of the weekly student news bulletin. In an effort to console him, I brought some of our old wedding photos in to show him that our “old pictures” were more embarrassing than his.

As a result of showing the photos, Mark started to tell some of the stories about our wedding (e.g. day-glo blue icing on the wedding cake). As I listened, it occurred to me that some of the stories were probably not even known by our daughters. How unfortunate! So, to remedy that situation, and to encourage others to “tell the stories” to those around them, here’s one snippet…

When we were engaged, we were living in the inner-city of St. Louis, working with a group that often took homeless people in for emergency housing. Each person working at the organization had a bedroom with a room-mate from the organization team and also some extra beds. Those extra beds were used for the “housing guests.” You never knew who you might have sleeping in the room with you. For a period of time Mark was host to an Native American guy whom we all really enjoyed getting to know. One day he up and left… leaving no note, address, or sign of himself except his boots. We were disappointed that he had left so suddenly, but Mark was glad to inherit his boots. They were a really nice pair of boots, and, hey! we were dirt poor! So they became his trademark shoes. In fact, he wore them at our wedding.

But, the really interesting part of the story is that not long after our friend left, the FBI showed up asking about his whereabouts. Turns out that he was wanted by the FBI for being involved in the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising. Yikes! Nevertheless, undaunted by the shady (and potentially criminal) past of their previous owner, Mark continued to proudly wear those boots. We even had to have them re-soled a few times. Unfortunately, somewhere along the adventure of our life we have lost track of those boots (probably in a garage sale some time ago). But we got to keep the story!

So, in honor of those boots, we share some of our wedding photos with you (for those of you trying to guess… 1977).