Monday, August 18, 2008

True Love Is Going To The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum

People say that true love takes many forms. I would tend to agree with them. It can be seen in a number of ways in any relationship. Often the example of a serious trial is used, or the showing true love comes out in the mundane and ordinary. I am of the opinion that true love is best expressed by what you are willing to do/give up for your spouse or significant other. This brings us to the Little House on the Prairie books and a little side trip tacked on to the end of our recent vacation.

Recently, my parents moved to Arkansas to be on a lake and so my mother, a sufferer of childhood diabetes, could be in a warmer climate. So our vacation this summer was to drive down and see them for a week. We were able to hang out and swim in the pool and also go out on the lake on their pontoon boat. Rest assured I will provide a blog with serious pictures very soon (Wife in a tube behind the boat IS pretty funny).

So when we were planning said vacation Wife suddenly turns to me and says with much exclamation.... Do you think our route takes us near Mansfield, MO? Now here I am, racking my head thinking of what could POSSIBLY be in Mansfield, MO. So of course Wife proceeds to tell me that Mansfield, MO was the town that Laura Ingalls Wilder spent her adult life, and where the Little House on the Prairie books were written. She then got that dull glazed over look from me that basically equates with....what does this have to do with OUR vacation.

One month later as I am standing in Mansfield - freakin - Missouri, and I am struck but what a supreme act of love I am giving my wife. For some reason, I had agreed to go to a little tiny town in the Ozark Mountains to check out a house and a museum to a writer of books I had never read, or really had any interest in. All because the woman I love had a STRONG desire to do so. I am not pointing this our to pat myself on the back, but rather to show as an example the things you are willing to do for the one you love. I am sure she would be willing to go to someplace just as obscure for me, and that is just about all you can ask for in a companion.

P.S. Check out the blog three years from now when I talk about how much I love my wife because I just went to Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood home in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Why she could not have written them in say...Jackson, Mi is beyond me...

3 comments:

Rosiecat24 said...

Oh, I LOVED the Little House on the Prairie series! I read all the books when I was a girl. I especially loved the delicious descriptions of enormous farmhouse meals...which might explain the origins of my humble little blog.

Wife has good taste in books! And friends, I might add ;-)

JD, I'm wondering what your limit would be when it comes to doing things to make Wife happy. Would you be willing to take a (future and thus currently imaginary) daughter to the American Girls store in Chicago if Wife asked you to do it?

JD @ run-thru-life.blogspot.com said...

Hmmmm, the American Girl store in Chicago would be a challenge, but I would definitely go to the store for them. I would of course give them gruff about it, and probably would not hang out very long, but I would go.

You would really enjoy the museum and house, it is all very classic and picturesque. You have to have Wife show you the pics.

Anonymous said...

RA, I don't know if I'd take said future and imaginary daughter to that store. I think the AG books are excellent, and I'm not opposed to the dolls, but I have a problem with mass marketing to children in general. I'll have to give this one some thought . . . when the time arises, of course. :)

JD's Wife