With this ring I me wed

SHERWOOD KIRALY

Patti Jo was out with friends the other night and the conversation

got around to weddings and rings. She had almost forgotten our story;

it’s old news to us. When she told it, one of her audience said it

would make a good column.

Well, we’ll see about that.

In 1985, we decided to get married in 1987. There’s a lot of

preparation involved in a wedding, and it’s usually wise to set up a

time cushion in case someone wants to change her mind.

I got Patti Jo as nice an engagement ring as I could afford, my

understanding being that it’s the engagement ring that’s supposed to

be pricey; the wedding band is just a simple, inexpensive, unassuming

finger hoop you wear for the rest of your life.

The thought of my own wedding ring made me a little uneasy because

I’d never worn a ring and what if it got stuck below my knuckle?

Symbolic marriage-entrapment implications aside, it could block my

circulation. I’d have to cut off my finger to remove the ring -- a

considerable sacrifice. It worried me. I felt similarly about

headbands.

But I knew refusing a ring could be a deal-breaker, so I went

along. Patti

Jo, expert jeweler, made her own band. She also sized my finger

and ordered a band for me. Then we took the rings to an engraver in

Irvine who promised to have them ready by Feb. 6, the day before the

wedding.

English was a second or third language to this engraver, but we

weren’t worried because we’d settled on simple inscriptions: just

“2-7-87 -- Love Patti Jo” on mine, “2-7-87 -- Love Sherwood” on

hers.

On Feb. 6 we got the rings and the inscription was pretty, no

misspellings or anything. I could even get my band on and off. The

only problem was that the one that fit Patti Jo’s finger said “Love

Patti Jo” and the one that fit my finger said “Love Sherwood.”

There was no time to correct them so we got married that way,

exchanging rings that said we loved ourselves, if not each other.

We’ll have been wearing them for 18 years on Monday.

People have asked why we’ve never gotten the inscriptions

reversed, but Patti Jo says it would thin out the metal. Besides, we

know what we meant them to say, after all, and who sees them anyway,

after all, and we’re used to them now, after all, and here we are,

still married after all this time. We’ve exceeded our own

expectations by a decade and a half. Maybe the rings are lucky.

So on anniversary Monday we’ll go out and celebrate 18 years

together, and remember the day we pledged ourselves -- she to her,

I to me. And every now and then I can take my ring off and read it.

It’s reassuring to know that I still care.