The Luv Pub

It sounds like a cliche: I met my husband after last call in the Brown Derby Luv Pub in Independence, OH, where people danced on a lighted disco floor to a live “house band.” There might have even been a mirror ball. I was just twenty years old, drinking with a fake ID, and working as a waitress in the upscale Chinese restaurant Pan Asia, while going to art school. He was pounding nails at the Cleveland Clinic as a carpenter.

I thought he was cute with his mop of blonde Beach Boy hair and embroidered western shirts. When he learned I was an artist, he commissioned me to replicate a landscape from a photo he’d taken in Aspen. Our first date was on an Easter evening when he came to pick up the painting.

He brought me a corsage. That impressed my parents.

I was nervous about showing him the painting. Ever the perfectionist, I’d tinkered with it earlier in the day. The oils weren’t quite dry and, wouldn’t you know it, I brushed my dress against the canvas and hurriedly had to change. We went to an art theater in downtown Cleveland to see Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein in 3-D (hard to image anyone wearing a corsage to such a movie), and then stopped for drinks after. I recall we talked about music. I said I was a fan of the harmonica-honking, gravel-voiced John Mayall, and was impressed Don knew who he was. Now that I think about it, he didn’t say he liked him, however (turns out he didn’t).

Friday the 13th

We married on a Friday the 13th (just because) in August, 1976. It blows my mind to think I’ve been with this one man more years than not. He’s shaped me, and I know I’ve shaped him. We’ve matured together. He’s my love and my mentor, and the logical left brain that compliments my emotional right brain.

Work in progress

Both of us are flawed. For me, knowing his flaws and watching him try to better himself means everything to me. I feel treasured and respected. He’s got my back. He still makes me laugh. We’ve learned a lot in forty years of marriage, and knowing we’re both a work in progress, even now, goes a long way.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz writes fiction, poetry and essays.
Her second novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is coming October 27, 2026 from Regal House Publishing: When love letters from a far-away stranger fall into the hands of an anxious overthinker, she convinces herself she can save him—but her misguided scheme goes horribly wrong, and the pain is so great she fears she must flee the life and friends she’s grown to love.
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