Louis Roney: A conservative's better half

She’s the sweetest smart person I have ever known. Her smile is a burst of joy; her laughter is a song of joy.

By nature, I’m a rather somber, quiet type myself. I could envision how much nicer a house would be with her in it — particularly when we had company. I decided right then to quit relying solely on my looks, and to explore the world of personality where I was quite untried.

I was not always the luckiest of guys, but when this beautiful, intelligent, talented gal fell for a cracker like me, I knew I had hit the jackpot.

She wanted to see the little town that I had left in 1938 to go to college in Massachusetts and hadn’t seen since. When we drove down here from New York City in 1980, I found the lakes were the same as they had been in 1938, but the population had increased several fold.

Sally Duncan Pace Townes, a real estate agent who was an old friend of mine from high school days, showed us a house on a lake, and we bought it on the spur of the moment. Then we spent our drive back to New York asking each other, “What are we going to do with a house in Florida?”

People these days have a penchant for identifying themselves in political terms. For that reason, and because I may be otherwise nondescript, I’ll use the word “conservative” to cover the part of my thinking that may show some hint of thoughtfulness.

These days I noticed that a great many Americans are busy trying to question the very qualities that have made us “exceptional” as a people.

There is a kind of native, unshakable stoicism in the average American Joe — be he from Georgia or Idaho — that makes him size things up before he abandons them forever.

My life’s experience has proven to me that I am the kind of person who can easily get into cantankerous situations.

And that fact alone has made me particularly careful in locating the right wife. The amazing part of this story — a miracle perhaps — is that when I finally located her, she was willing to team up with me. That was 32 years ago, and believe it or not, I’ve been able to present a relatively acceptable picture of myself ever since.

I don’t believe that I have any fatal character flaws, for the truth has always been my creed, but I am not by nature as tactful as I might often wish. I am not a person given to meanness, but I am thoroughly pledged to fairness.

I am quite conscious of the fact that my b.w. emphasizes the better side of my nature, as do many smart women who are attached to men of limited social instincts.

My b.w. does not tell me what to do. But I very frequently ask her what to do and she very often improves on the original me.

The women in my family have historically been strong and intelligent, and my b.w. is outdone by none of my kin that I can remember.

She is, in addition, much easier to get along with than some of my own blood, with whom, thank goodness, I am not obliged to live.