A few weeks ago, I began a series of Facebook posts about my original song “I Love the Crazy,” which tells the story of my life with MaryFran. Each of the three posts explains the story behind one of the first three verses. (Links to Verse 1, Verse 2, Verse 3.) The posting dates were purposeful, because they were anniversaries of when events occurred back in March and April of 1976.
The rest of the song kind of races through the next 47 years for two reasons. One, if every month of our lives together required three verses to explain, the song would be longer than “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Two, our life has been a splendid chaos as we tried to keep up with each other and our kids and then their kids, and it’s still going at higher speed than a pair of 67-year-olds ought to travel.
But I got to thinking that it wasn’t fair to leave you hanging as to the stories behind the rest of the song. So I’m writing this post. In the interest of brevity and your patience (not to mention decorum in some cases), a few details are left to your imagination. Put another way: I’m not explaining every line here, OK? Here are the pertinent facts, followed by the full lyrics at the end of the post:
When MaryFran saw that I had a guitar, she asked me to play something. I played her “In Terms of Two,” a deep track from Chicago VI. Her reaction: “That’s one of my favorite songs!”
Around the end of April 1976, a bunch of us were hanging out in the dorm on a late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Our residence hall had endured several false fire alarms that spring and we were all joking about it. MaryFran started poking around the alarm on the wall at the end of the hall and accidentally poked too hard, setting it off. As bad luck would have it, somebody not in our group happened to be in the stairwell and ratted her out. During the next week or so, she got hauled before the student court. A friend in pre-law managed to negotiate her “sentence” to a year of probation. But the trauma of the incident pulled us closer together.
Within a few months, we were engaged, and we got married on June 3, 1978, shortly after her graduation from Bradley. Then we had four kids over a span of five years, four months and 12 days – and then another five years, three months and 18 days later. All boys. Four of the five are married with children. We have nine grandkids – six boys and three girls ranging in age from 16 to 3. And we are on our third cat. The first thought he was a puma; the second was missing a few marbles; the current one is afraid of her shadow.
When our youngest son was 2 years old, my parents were gracious enough to take the kids for a week in January while MaryFran and I escaped to the Caribbean for a cruise. On that cruise, MaryFran entered the beer-chugging contest. After several preliminary rounds, it came down to her and some ripped, 20-something fratboy jock. When the MC gave each a can of Budweiser, I turned to the people sitting next to me and said, “This is over.” And it was. My babe downed that beer in two heartbeats and threw the empty can on the deck, causing the fratboy jock to spew what was in his mouth all over himself. Standing ovation. And free drinks everywhere she went the rest of the cruise.
Back home, we went through a spell with neighborhood vigilantes roaming the alleys and filing complaints about alleged code violations: uncut weeds, rickety fences, peeling paint. I was in the midst of painting our house. I had stripped off the old paint, primed the walls, then was working on two full coats. I had one side to go when we reached October and had to shut down because of inconsistent weather. Then we got a complaint – not about the house, but about our detached garage. I went to municipal court to get an extension to spring. Nope. Gotta paint the garage right now. So … MaryFran went around the neighborhood asking folks for unused exterior paint. We wound up with about 10-12 different colors. She bought a bunch of $1 brushes, gave them to our kids and their friends and turned them loose. The code enforcement dude laughed. “Well, it’s painted,” he said and checked us off the list of code scofflaws. The neighbors were pretty furious. But they don’t mess with us anymore.
One day while the kids were eating breakfast, they discovered we were out of milk. MaryFran reached into the freezer, grabbed a container of vanilla ice cream and dumped a big scoop on each bowl of Cheerios. “Mix it up,” she told them. “It’s a dairy product.”
In our house, you get love and support and empathy. You don’t get pity or even much sympathy. (Example: One night our middle son, Luke, came into the family room holding his arm and saying he broke it. “You didn’t break it,” MaryFran said. She pulled a bag of frozen corn out of the freezer. “Put this on it,” she said. Luke let go of his injured arm to grab the corn, and the forearm bent 90 degrees in the middle. Emergency room, here we come.) We have rules, but we also have grace. And we have fun.
As we’ve grown older, age takes its toll. My hair was always light, but it got thin. And then mostly white. MaryFran has dark brown hair, but she developed a thin gray streak. She colored it over a couple of times and then decided forget that. So she leaves the gray streak alone and colors much of the rest of her hair various shades of purple.
Did I tell you? I LOOOOOOVVVVVVVVE PURPLE!
Oh, MaryFran loves cactus.
You can hear a live performance of the song on the Listen page of this website. We’re also recording a version (and having a bunch of fun with some supplemental parts) as part of an album project. (More info on that to come.) Meanwhile, here are the lyrics of the song, all the way through:
I walked into the room and you were breathing fire,
Mad as hell your night was going South.
I tried to say hello and introduce myself,
But you just flipped your hair and headed out.
Next time I was dancing with another girl,
And you were spinning tunes up on the stage.
I tried to wave hello and set a rendezvous,
But you stared right through my smile with a certain rage.
So I was sitting at the bar with a friend of mine
When you walked up and asked me for a ride.
Then you grabbed my face and kissed me like a lover would,
And my friend looked up and said, ‘That girl’s crazy!’
Oh, you know I love the crazy.
You were always turning left in a right-hand world.
You were the cactus in a field of yellow daisies.
Yeah, you know I love the crazy.
You asked me for a song and so I played you one
From deep inside an album that you knew.
Then we danced all week to the rhythm of a fire alarm
And drove off to seal the terms for two.
Now it’s forty-seven years, five kids, nine grands and the psycho cats;
You made up all the rules as life rolled on.
So we made love in the park and on the golf course in the sun.
You won the Bud chug on a cruise ship just for fun.
And you taught the kids to dance and to always take a chance;
You put ice cream on their Cheerios when the milk ran out.
Then you tie-dyed our garage like a Peter Maxx collage
Just to watch the neighbors lose their minds.
And Rule Number One was you gotta have some fun,
And Number Two was nothing has to rhyme – so take that, Jack!
Oh, yeah, you know I love the crazy,
How you’re always turning left in a right-hand world.
You are the cactus in my field of yellow daisies,
Yeah, you know I love the crazy.
Oh, yeah, you know I love your crazy.
Well, the decades took their toll just like they always do.
We got old and our minds grew a little hazy.
But I’m still playing the songs the way you want me to,
And that purple in your hair is hot and crazy.
Yeah, you know I love your crazy,
How you’re always turning left in a right-hand world.
You are the cactus in my field of yellow daisies,
Yeah, you know I love your crazy.
Oh, yeah, you know I love your crazy,
Oh, yeah, you know I love your crazy,
Oh, yeah, you know I love your crazy.
The whole fam, the last time we were all together. Christmas 2021.
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