Freakshow: Two Humans Can Stand Each Other for 62 Years
The Washington Post carries this disturbing story of human oddity: two people, who met 62 years ago and have been together ever since, wed last week. Insanity! Why, take any normal human, and you'll see how crazy that is-that's more three times longer than all four of Rush Limbaugh's marriages combined! In fact, that's longer than his four marriages plus the length of all three of Rudy Giuliani's marriages! Gross!
Thanks for my morning bawl.
Henry is the lover and Bob is the beloved.
Must that always be the arrangement?
Man, Bookish, they've been together a *really* long time then.
@Setec: It is not my concept, but Ms. Cullers. Although I must say, there is beaucoup wisdom to it.
@myself: McCullers, that is.
Auden had a lovely take on it too: "Let the more loving one be me."
really? I would think it was the reverse, what with Henry bailing on their first date and Bob worried about him still when he doesn't come home..? But do elaborate on the archetype for me.
@Bookish — Oooh. I thought you were doing Plato (or any number of other ancient Greeks). That's their take — the older á¼Ïαστής, the lover (erastes), and the young á¼Ïόμενος, the beloved (eromenos).
I was rolling along fine until the article says one of them adopted the other in the 90's. So how can you MARRY YOUR DAD?! Did Woody Allen officiate?
These guys invented twincest.
@Scroll_Lock:
Adoption was nullified once they could legally marry. I LOVED that part of the story — way to beat the system, guys!
@CityD: It's bittersweet, marrying the orphan you disowned.
@STC: I'll sign off on octogenarian twincest as long as they do not become human centipedes.
If you read further, you will see that the adoption was annulled (this can be done, apparently?) a few weeks before the wedding.
It's made pretty clear that they did the adoption because it was a way to legally make them family to each other in a way that nothing else could. How fucked up is a system of family law that allows a man to adopt someone older than he is but not allow the two of them to marry?
It's a very old gay practice that's fallen by the wayside. (It is also really kind of gross but only semantically or syntactically or something! It's also very sensible.)
It was on an episode of Law & Order recently!
My sister and I have considered attempting to marry each other for similar reasons.
Most adorable couple. Ever.
I hope they have more good years together (and a young relative who sits them down with a video camera to save the quips and the memories for posterity).
I liked "I was very toasted that day."
That thing they say about couples starting to look alike after a while?
SERIOUSLY.
Coincidentally, I've also heard some couples grow to look like Robert Byrd with age.
Bowties!! Adorbs.
Bowties are cool.
Except on Tucker Carlson.
@forrealz: almost as adorbs as your avatar. Want one!
on an otherwise bleak news day this was a welcome gem. thank you.
Curiously, I'm looking forward to the release of the sex tape.
Lemon Party 2: Electric Buggerboo
But now I am wishing that Grandpa Al Lewis were still alive and kicking. What a menage that would make!
@STC: They were really something before electricity.
Filmed by the Lumiere brothers, no doubt.
"Boris Karloff was also there, but the two spent the evening talking to each other."
This story was lovely enough to distract me from the epically bad hair day I'm having.
"They're made from the same slate as Jackie Kennedy's gravestone, Henry explains. And until [the matching urns] are placed side by side at Arlington National Cemetery," Bob adds, "they're good for holding M&Ms."
There's like all of 20th Century American history in that sentence.
You might say that at night, they put their teeth in the same glass!
OK, so I stole it from Don Rickles.
It's Monday, anyway.