Saturday, February 01, 2014

Anna's middle name is Green, by Broome Spiro

Posted on Broome Spiro's Facebook page:
Anna's middle name is Green. But of course there is a story, I love stories and everything should have one. So here is the story of Anna's middle name. When I was in my second year of law school Penny came to work at the library. I used to hang out in the "employee" part of the library and met her and we became friends. Penny was married and I was living with someone and we did a few things as couples, but mainly Penny was a "friend" that I only saw at work.
My relationship floundered about a year later and about three months later Penny moved out of their apartment after 12 years of marriage. I had no idea that they were having any problems and it was quite a shock.
After about 10 weeks I decided to ask her on a date (scary, because trying to make something more out of a decent friendship is scary) Anyway I was just about to start a new job, I was going to law school, working at Prisoners Legal Services and I got a job working at a comic book store. The day I was supposed to start, the Bread and Puppet Theater (http://breadandpuppet.org/) was giving a free lunchtime performance.
I was supposed to start work at 11am and the performance was at noon for an hour and I wanted to invite Penny to see them as a first date, not as a friend.
I went to my new boss, Roger
, and asked if I come come to work late at 1:30 pm instead of at 11am.
He was very understanding and said "Oh you have to do something for one of your classes at law school?" and I said "No."
and he said "Oh you have to do something for your job at Prisoners Legal Services?" and I said "No."
and he looked perplexed and said "Ok, why do you want to come late to work the first day that you are working here?"
and I said "There is this woman and I think he could be very special to me and I want to take her on a first date to see the Bread and Puppet Theater at noon that day, so I couldn't be back to start work until 1:30 if I went." And he looked really serious and thoughtful and said "Ok you can come to work late, but if things work out with this special woman then I want you to name your first child after me."
To which I readily agreed and promised that I would name my first child Green Spiro and I did,
Now Roger Green can tell his version of this story and it may differ a bit, but I can guarantee that he agrees with the absolute gist of our conversation.
And I went on the date and we went on another and another and we got married the day after her divorce came through. And after 18 months or so everything was forgiven (even though Penny had nothing to do with my breakup nor I with hers) and Ken now stays with us when he comes east.
Presently I get my wonderful brownies when Penny picks up his mother's mail while she is in the hospital, because the wonderful brownie store is in the same town as where his mother lives. And that is the story of why Anna's middle name is Green. The story has a Happy Ending and it has everything, suspense, romance, names, faith, promises made and promises kept, a marvelous daughter, (which i another story for another time) and brownies.

TO WHICH I RESPONDED:
Yeah, except the extortion part of the story is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Broome offered to name the child of himself and this woman (Penny), if they ever had a child. It would not have occurred to me to have asked.

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