November 1995: It was this weekend twenty years ago that I flew back to Arizona for Thanksgiving to inform my family that I had met the man I was going to marry, even if he hadn’t asked me yet. My family always gets together every Thanksgiving, usually numbering between thirty and fifty guests. I had flown in from Oklahoma for the weekend, knowing my full-time job was going to keep me in Oklahoma for Christmas. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the last time I flew home unmarried.

My Uncle Gary quizzed me at the Thanksgiving dinner table that year and it went something like this:

“So, who is this guy? How old is he?”

“He’s 24.” (I was 21 at the time.)

“Why is he still in college at 24?”

“He was in the Coast Guard for four years before starting college.”

“The Coast Guard! Like Popeye?”

“Popeye? Was Popeye in the Coast Guard?”

“Does he have tattoos like Popeye?” (Here, my Uncle was entirely joking- he had no idea)

“Well, yes, but I don’t think he has any like Popeye.”

Gary was speechless for a full minute as he regathered his wits.

“Wait, any? Just how many tattoos does he have?”

“Ten.”

“The guy you are dating has TEN TATTOOS?” (expressing this phrase in all caps is really quite understating the volume Gary achieved.)

The entire room of forty-five people went silent. I’m not sure there were any tattoos in the room. None that anyone would admit anyway.

“Yes.”

“Well. When do we get to meet him?”

I looked around the room and smiled a wary smile. “I don’t know. Sometime.”

I crack up thinking about that Thanksgiving and the worried calls I received afterward from my Granny Jane who demanded all sorts of testing be done to make sure sterile needles had been used during his tattoos, because she had seen on TV… (oh mercy…it still makes me laugh- and note- she and Pop were Matt’s biggest fans after they met him.)

And so it begins… celebrating twenty years of Matt Weems and family madness. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, but I’m thankful every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!