I rarely watch the Celtics these days. There’s just too much individual showboating.  I really loved the game of basketball back in the Bird-Parish-McHale days. It was just amazing to watch that team pass the ball. I also loved the Boston Garden with all its warts. The atmosphere was really electric every night because of all the history there. I really dislike the Fleet Center. The eighties Celtics decade really represented one of best times of my life. My Celtics cohort (and niece’s husband), Sergei, and I had our priorities. First and foremost, our goal was t0 get to as many games as possible. We did that by buying packs of obstructed view seats for $10, particularly during playoff time, then we’d figure out a good place to see the game from once we got in. I also had an alternative source of tickets.

At the time, I was in charge of a $7 million marketing communications budget and handled a lot of outgoing contract work. I had become really good friends with the sales manager at Multiprint in Boston, a guy named Peter, and his wife. Not only did he and I go to lunch together, but I’d go to his house for dinner once in a while. Peter was a really fun guy to go to lunch with, to say the least. It was like open bar at a freakin’ wedding. There were a couple of days I didn’t make it back to the office. But the best thing was that Multiprint had unbelievable first balcony Celtics seats at dead center and I got them all the time. Peter used to tell me that the owner at Multiprint used to say, “Give them to Deb. She really appreciates them. The other people don’t even know what’s going on during the game.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t uncommon for Sergei to call my niece, Maria, and say, “Hey, I’ll have to come over after the game. Deb got us tickets.” Yeah, I could feel the pain in my back as she stabbed that voodoo doll I brought her back from New Orleans. The absolute worst thing Sergei and I ever did to Maria happened in 1986, the year the Celts won their final championship of the Bird era.

Will you marry me? (But not right now.)

One day, Sergei and I went to a game and he pulled this ring box out of his jacket pocket. “Hey, I’m going to ask Ria to marry me.” I just looked at him. “You can’t do that now. We’re heading in to the playoffs this week. It’ll be an incredible distraction and I have a ton of seats coming from Multiprint.” He looked at me. “You’re right. I’ll wait until after the playoffs. It’s not like she knows.” We thought that was a brilliant master plan.

Anyway, that was a great Celtics year and a great Celtics team with Bill Walton as the back-up center. If he hadn’t been there, no championship. (How can you go wrong? The guy’s also a Dead Head.)  And Larry Bird is just my all-time favorite athlete, hands down. The guy has class. He was an incredible leader with an amazing talent, and he played the game with passion and to win…whatever it took, even if it meant sacrificing his own stats. That doesn’t happen today. Best of all, when he retired, he really retired. He was done. He didn’t torture the planet with a bunch of absurd “come backs.” Bird was just plain finished.

Anyway, Sergei and I embarked on our excellent championship adventure. When we couldn’t get tickets, we’d go to the Town Line (affectionately called The Town Slime by us) in Malden to watch the games on the big screen TVs (and to get trashed on vodka). My mother would be mortified because it would be me, Sergei and then all of Sergei’s brothers. And she knew we’d be yelling rude stuff at the refs when they called fouls against the Celtics. Hey, at least the stuff we yelled wasn’t as bad as what the guy next to us in the Multiprint seats always yelled. Whenever Jake O’Donnell (our least favorite ref; we were convinced he hated the Celts) blew a foul on a Celtic, the guy next to us would yell, “Hey, Jake, the whistle blows. Does your wife?” I think it was really nasty, but I also admit that the first time I heard it I turned to Sergei and said, “What a great line. How come I can’t think up that stuff?” His response? “Because you’re a lesbian.” (That was always his explanation.)

Anyone remember a guy named Mark Aguirre who played for the Dallas Mavericks? He was a pain in the ass. There were times when he could just turn it on and kill us during a game. One night, he was whistled for a technical foul. It was really quiet in the building, when Sergei yelled, “What did Yoda say?” Know what, the guy really did look like Yoda. I just hadn’t realized it until Sergei yelled it out. The whole section started laughing.

Sergei finally did propose to Maria and, in a fit of passion no doubt, confessed that he had been holding off because of the playoffs. Not only did he confess, but he told Ria that I instigated the whole thing. Benedict Arnold. She called me up one day and left me a message, “You are such a jerk.” Hey, at least she was laughing. She’s never let me live that one down more than twenty years later, and I never let him forget that he threw me under the freakin’ bus.

The plot thickens

The following year, the Celts were in the playoffs again and, unfortunately, Maria would yet again be a victim. My sister decided to have her shower at a restaurant down the street from the house. They scheduled it the day the Celts were supposed to play the Atlanta Hawks, and it was a final and deciding game. Sergei owned this one. He brought a television to the shower. Hey, I was eternally grateful, but this seemed to me to be a big risk after the engagement delay.

Worst of all, it was the day when Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins went on that amazing scoring bender, matching each other point for point.Everybody at the shower was mesmerized by the shoot out, which meant that nobody was really paying attention to what was going on in that room. Wilkins finally scored 56 and Bird 53. The win, however, went to the Celts. Ah, but now not only was Maria pissed, so was her mother (also known as my oldest sister). And they were pissed at both of us because they were convinced, somehow, that I had instigated this whole television thing. Me?

Seriously, though, we were so bad. I look back now and I’m surprised Maria even speaks to either of us.

People always ask how Beth and I met. To be honest, there weren’t many avenues open back then except the bars and being introduced to potential dates/mates by friends. I had gone that route a couple of times with disasterous consequences. And by the time Beth and I met in 1992, the bar scene had seen its best days in Boston (unfortunately). The only place around was Club Cafe (still there) which is a combination restaurant and video dance bar. (To this day, Beth calls it Club Khaki.)

That was also before the days of Craigslist (where there are more certifiable whack jobs per byte than anything else) and Internet date sites that want you to pay a monthly fee to be tortured. So, the main avenue for meeting was a newspaper called Bay Windows, which is still New England’s largest GLBT newspaper. As it turns out, both Beth and I placed ads in the personals that week and, as fate would have it, we responded to each other’s ad. But it isn’t that simple, you see.

I had also met Miss Headcase through Bay Windows, so I was a bit gun shy, especially after having been single for a few years. I also had plans with a couple of friends to go to an Annie Liebowitz exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art the night Beth responded, so I told her I had plans and would contact her the next day. I had also been set up to go on a date through a gay dating service (which has now gone out of business). As it turns out, I was being set up with a woman at Staples who had the Millipore office supplies account. But there was something intriguing about Beth, and when I finally realized that we had responded to each other’s ad, I cancelled the fix up and decided to go for it with Beth. I remember calling her Bay Windows box and saying, “Listen, we just have to meet. It’s as simple as that.” I admit that I was trying to keep it casual. I was determined to not get immediately involved, especially after what I went through with Miss Headcase. Well, we see how that played out: We’re coming up on a seventeenth anniversary. We met on July 22, 1992. As you will see, however, we have a few anniversary celebrations in our relationship.

Before I go any further, however, there’s one other thing I should mention about Beth’s ad. Her ad was the “personal of the week” when I responded to it. At the time, however, I didn’t know it was because the newspaper had fucked up the type. Instead of it reading “Grown up lesbian,” it read “Ground up lesbian.” Now, I was feeling pretty ground up myself after Miss Headcase, and misery loves company. Why wouldn’t I want to meet the person who ran that ad?

Of course, we met at Club Cafe for dinner. I stopped at Winston’s Flowers on the way to the restaurant and bought her a single yellow rose. I knew immediately that it was Beth when she turned the corner and walked up the restaurant stairs. I can’t remember exactly how the night went from start to finish. I do know that we drank a bottle of Moet in the lounge before we even got to dinner. I also know that we laughed like hell over her ad. I knew right from that night that we’d be together, but that didn’t mean I was going to be easy about it. Beth didn’t stay that evening. Then, the first night she did stay, I wouldn’t allow her to take a shower there in the morning. That was really fucked up. I admit that. You know, that was like my last gasp before succumbing totally.

Not long after that, Beth and I were on the common in Wakefield. It started pouring rain, thunder and lightening, hail — the whole bit. As we were trying to make a run for the car and head back to Melrose, Beth said, “You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that I want to be with you.” Okay. Game. Set. Match. Sayonara, people. It was a done deal. She stayed with me that night…and she took a shower. It was that night that we started splitting time between Gloucester and Melrose. Eventually, we’d move to Gloucester together and live right near the Wingaersheek salt marsh. [To read more about this fun-filled, lively experience, go here and here.]

In spite of the fact that we were already talking about looking for a place to live, I continued to romance Beth. Once a week, I’d send her a huge bouquet of flowers at work. She loved it, and pretty soon all her friends were nagging their boyfriends to do the same.

Living proof that opposites attract

Beth and I are both Italian. That’s where the similarities end. Beth has spent most of her life in school learning. She has the degrees to prove it, including one in Music Composition from Berklee. There are only three instruments that Beth does not play. I’m not sure what they are, but I know she was playing piano in quite an accomplished manner at the age of three. The other degrees she has are more in the medical field, like Counseling Psychology and Biochemistry. She even did a stint studying at Cambridge University in the UK. When we met, however, she was working for Blue Cross, Blue Shield, helping to convert their computers over to a bigger, more shiny system.

I’m the exact opposite. I really did not like school, and that’s probably because the presenters of the material didn’t do much to make it interesting. I like to learn as well, but I do it other ways. By the time I met Beth I had been at Millipore for eighteen years and was the Manager of Marketing Services (advertising, public relations). I also spent a considerable amount of time writing. I had moved up consistently every two or three years and I was on a path. I was well-respected and was at my peak during this time. I was running two departments for the Analytical Division, Marketing Services and Technical Writing, and at one time had as many as a dozen direct reports. And yes, I was making excellent money.

When we met, Beth and I were both in very good spots in our lives. There’s no question about it. Time and circumstances would take care of that, however. The real test of our relationship’s strength and our commitment to one another was yet to come.

Making it legal

Beth and I did not make it legal until 2006, even though same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004. Other events would come into play before that could happen, and that is for another post. However, we did take several other steps to honor our commitment to each other.

We moved into Gloucester together in September of 1992. On December 5, 1992, we had our commitment ceremony at the house. One one of our trips to P-town, we went to city hall and registered our domestic union. That was largely symbolic, but it did recognize our union in that town. That was more than most towns were doing back then. Then, the state of Vermont moved to have same-sex civil unions legalized in 2000.

Beth and I applied for a license in Vermont as soon as we could — August of 2000. We had to drive up to Vermont and apply, then go home and wait ten days give or take) for the license. We chose to have our civil union in Brattleboro.  Thalia was not yet four years old (Aaron was not born until 2001) , and we did all this via day trips while she was in daycare. We drove back up for the civil union ceremony. We decided to get married on the gazebo on Brattleboro common, rain or shine. We figured we had one opportunity to make this happen. It was the fall of 2000 when we returned, and it was pouring rain and cold on that day. We had an arrangement to meet the judge at the gazebo at a specific time. We waited for an hour before deciding she was a no-show. We even called her office, but got a machine. So, we pulled out the list of judges that was given to us at town hall the day we came up to apply for the license.

We had driven a long way to get this done. We didn’t want to go home empty handed and have to return a third time, but we accepted the possibility that this might be the way it turned out. We just plain lucked out. We got hold of a judge who was available and was only too happy to help us out. She was at the gazebo within about twenty minutes, and our civil union was official within twenty minutes of her arrival. She signed our paperwork, took it back and filed it right away. Before we knew it, we had our certificate in the mail. We blew it up giant size and put it on the door leading to our playroom/office in Winchester.

Beth and I have had our ups and downs over all these years. It’s for sure that you will be exposed to both the good and the bad. It was after a few particularly bad years that we made it legal in the state of Massachusetts (on May 4, 2006). It was simple and uncomplicated. We were married in the chambers of the Reverend Harold E. Babcock, pastor at the Unitarian Univeralist Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The only others present were Thalia (then about eight) and Aaron (then five). Aaron was running around (and “goofing off” as he puts it) through the whole thing. After the ceremony, we took the kids out to eat.

There was one particularly funny moment on the ride to the church. Aaron had been thinking about this for a while, I could tell. Finally, as we were parking the car, he said, “Ma, I don’t think this is such a good idea.” Beth and I just kind of looked at each other, but I had to ask why. I owed him that much. He replied, “Because you’re going to have to kiss a girl. Why do you think?” We all just started laughing like hell, and I told him not to worry about it. Someday he may come to appreciate kissing girls. Or maybe not. Who knows.

Both of these were pretty low key affairs, I’d have to say. The really big event was our commitment ceremony in Gloucester back in 1992.

A party (and a honeymoon night) to remember

Our commitment ceremony in Gloucester was a huge party. Yes, as you saw in my earlier posts, it was the winter of our discontent in Gloucester, but we had no such problems on this evening. The wood stoves had been going for two days straight and we had plenty of cooking going on at the house during the day which helped to keep it warm. About sixty bodies giving off heat helped throughout the night as well. My best friend at the time, Sally, came up early in the morning to help me and Beth’s mother (she arrived the night before) get the place ready. (Sally was very valiant to come so early. She was sick as a dog from undergoing fertility treatments.) I had to run into Cambridge to pick up our wedding cake at Rosie’s Bakery. Believe it or not, the morning of our wedding, Beth was missing in action. She was in Boston taking the LSAT for law school and would not be home until sometime mid-afternoon.

By the time Beth arrived home, we had about an hour and a half before guests would begin to arrive. We both still needed to shower and dress. Convinced that things were under control, Beth and I went upstairs to get ready. I was feeling fine. Beth was really nervous. We smoked a joint. Then, I was still feeling fine and Beth got really stupid. Stupid is better than nervous in Beth’s case. We were both feeling pretty good by the time guests began to arrive, and what a motly group it was. We had a lot of people from Millipore and Beth’s friends from Blue Cross, including Frank and Mark, two of the biggest flamers you’d ever want to meet. My sisters, nieces and nephews were there. My very gay Melrose landlords (you’ve yet to actually “meet” them, but you will),  and Beth’s rock climbing partners, Barb and Bill, were also there. I don’t need to keep on here. The place was packed…and jumping.

The ceremony was presided over by the Reverend Wendy Fitting, fellow lesbian, and the extension minister of the Independent Christian Church, Universalist, in Gloucester since 1989. We had been meeting with her for the two months leading up to the ceremony. While she performed the ceremony, Bill Evan’s piano was playing softly in the background. Then, it was time to party and someone — I’m not sure who it was at the time — switched the music to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” by Stevie Wonder, our chosen wedding song.

The party went very late into the night, I’m told, but we started saying our goodbyes about 10 p.m. We were headed to the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, where we would spend our wedding night. Beth’s mom was going to spend the night and care for the cats. We’d be home the next day as we were still undecided about where to take a real honeymoon. (We actually never took one, although we were initially talking about Quebec City.)  We grabbed a bottle of champagne to bring to the hotel with us. By the time we got to the car, it was freezing out. But with the help of Beth’s mom and my sisters, the members of my Millipore staff managed to sneak away from the festivities to decorate the Camry with toothpaste and shaving cream. We have photos of their handiwork somewhere, but we have yet to find them. They had also tied clothes hangars to the back of the car, which we really didn’t know about until they started sparking as we drove down the highway.

We pulled up in front of the Copley Plaza about midnight in our well-decorated vehicle. The porter was gay. He walked up to the car as we rolled down the windows he said, “Good evening, ladies.” We smiled. “Good evening,” I said. He asked if we had reservations and I told him we were checking in under the Honeymoon Package. He looked at us and laughed. “They’re going to love this at the front desk!” Check-in was actually quite pleasant. We were up in our corner suite within fifteen minutes. There was a bottle of Moet and some mutant-sized, chocolate-dipped strawberries waiting for us, compliments of the hotel. Since it was at the time of original ownership, and before it became part of the Fairmont chain, the room was full of the most incredibly beautiful fresh flowers. (On a return trip a year later, the hotel had been purchased the flowers were tacky plastic.)

We had a hell of a private party. We ordered some food. We danced a little. We watched television. We made love. While we were doing this we killed off two bottles of champagne, and we did not even think about how bloody cold it probably was in Gloucester. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day, and a perfect beginning for our life together.