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February 18, 2004 |
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Stunned. It’s the only way to describe the physical re-action experienced when learning long time friends have divorced. As with many couples, we met Barbie and Ken when the Maynard daughters were attending Pomona Elementary. To be perfectly honest I was more than a little off-put by their “West Coast” style of dress, Barbie with her perky blonde pony-tailed hair and ever changing sun dresses joined at the hip to Ken who was always attired in matching swim wear no matter what the season or occasion. Since my family continually accuses me of being way to judgmental I reasoned Ken and Barbie, like many newcomers to the Grand Valley, moved East to escape the ever present hassle one finds in California living. Still, both Barbie and Ken were way to “So Cal” for my taste with their year round tans and pink convertible roadster featuring an extremely garish yellow ragtop. To me both were extremely “plastic”, their personalities lacking any substance. But the Maynard daughters were quite taken with the couple so I refrained from objecting to their constant presence around our house. Be that as it may it still took my breath away last week when a CNN anchor glibly read an item detailing that after 43 years of marriage Barbie and Ken had decided to divorce. Those two had been together as a couple longer than Jan and I had been married. If it could happen to Barbie and Ken it could happen to any of us no matter the duration of our marriages. It’s so difficult when couples, people you have become close to, divorce. One desperately desires to remain friends with both the husband and wife, yet it seems we’re forced to take sides. The chances of my running into Ken are remote. The TV talking head said he was in seclusion at the couples Malibu beach home and asked friends and media to please respect his privacy at this difficult time. I always fancied myself a fairly competent conversationalist but Ken was flat out hard to talk to. Evidentially, we shared none of the same interests. But it is a given I’ll run into Barbie, Most likely while shopping at Wally World where, lost again, I’ll stumble into the wrong aisle and find myself in the toy section staring eyeball to eyeball with Barbie and her new Australian boyfriend. What does one say in awkward moments like this? “Sorry about you and Ken?” “Nice tan” or “Aren’t you a bit old for hoop earrings and a bikini?” Well the last statement one wouldn’t blurt out, my mother raised me better than that, but it has too be what all Barbie’s friends are thinking. Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked when learning of the break-up after forty-three years of being together. Many people whispered Barbie and Ken were married in name only since they were childless. Decades ago the scurrilous rumor spread that Betsy Wettsy was the love child of Barbie and Ken, a baby they had given up for adoption since neither felt ready for the responsibility of parenting, but stories like that are usually vicious gossip. I am certain Ken has come out of the closet, because it’s where he lived at our house, the second shelf from the bottom, off the toy room. And now he’s in Malibu. Here I thought he had gone to live with one of our granddaughters. I understand why Barbie has taken up with an Australian surfer. The same day as the announcement of Barbie and Ken’s divorce proceedings CNN also detailed the tail of an Australian surfer bitten by a two foot long Wobbegong Shark. He couldn’t get the nasty critter to release his bite so with the shark attached to his leg he swam 300 yards to shore and then drove two miles to his surf club where the shark released its grip after its gills were flushed with fresh water. Tough mates those Aussie. But now the phrase, “Let’s put another shrimp on the Barbie” has taken on a whole new meaning. All in all I wish the new couple only the best. I love my wife but still one must admit, that Barbie is a real doll. |
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