Today, 3 June 2002, is a very special day. Special indeed, because thirty years ago, my mother and father got married in a grand ceremony with much weeping. Step into the way-back machine with me, why don’t you, and let’s revisit the young couple with a photograph carefully chosen to irritate my mother, should she ever learn how to activate a computer let alone access my web page:

(left to right) Lucas’s mom; Lucas’s dad.

Marilyn “Myrt” Rector and Russell “Rusty” Haynes “Hack” Hackett III lived in the same apartment complex and were introduced by a mutual friend. He was a student in medical school; she was making a humble living doing whatever it was she was doing. Maybe she was a waitress or something. (Little help here? Anybody?) Nevertheless, despite their differences, they soon fell in love.

Neither can remember when the marriage proposal occurred, if in fact it did at all; evidence perhaps of hard partying or (my own pet theory) of an elaborate trick perpetrated by both families in an effort to get their remaining single children married off. Regardless, the marriage occurred thirty years ago today, and soon enough, thirty years ago tomorrow, my older brother John was born. Ha ha! Just kidding! He wasn’t born until at least eight months later. A couple years later, the middle and best child was born, and then some years after that, my younger brother; and we have been a happy, healthy, farting-in-the-kitchen family ever since.

This third day of June is notable for another reason, one which stands in contrast with the long, happy marriage of my parents. Today is the birthday of my ex-wife Darian, with whom I have five small children. At least, they were small last time I saw them, if you drift my gift. By an astounding coincidence, she is also celebrating her thirtieth year, if you consider the beginning of life to be exactly five years before one is born. Darian and the kids now live on the other side of the continent, shacking up in a Seattle trailer park with an industrial musician named Spike, or Brick, or Kip, or one of those other names which contain an i and a k.

We were young and impetuous, but even on the day of our senior prom wedding we were not afraid to goof around:

(left to right) Lucas; Lucas’s ex-wife.

So, in memory of those good times, happy birthday to you, Darian, and I hope that the kids don’t tax you too much in the coming months. I’m taking good care of the chinchillas, just like I promised I would!

The author would like to point out that portions of the above story are either fictionalized accounts, embellishments for the sake of clarity, and/or bald-faced lies.

As a young stand-up comic, Lucas Hackett was notorious for incorporating audience participation into his act. Here, in a complicated routine on prehistoric man, he demonstrates an ancient birthing position for an unpleasantly surprised Mr. Young Levi Stahl.