my great big lumberjack husband.

I was a newlywed, my husband a great big bear of a man, like a lumberjack. I was married to Paul Bunyun, or at least Howard Keel in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was the kind of man that could fit his hands all the way around his wife's waist, and would pick up her like that and laugh a great big man laugh.

We lived in a great big house, with oddly shaped rooms. It was very dirty, because we were newlyweds and had probably bought the house cheap on account of its condition. We loved a challenge, my great big lumberjack husband and me.

There were people visiting with us, people that did odd things to our great big house, like seal off the attic so no one could get in and out. This made me very mad, these people and their attic-sealing habits. I yelled and stomped, and told them to get out of the great big house where I lived with my great big husband.

Suddenly, I was very afraid, for I had just evicted our visitors, and I was just the wife. I had not consulted my great big lumberjack husband, and these were times when the man had the power. I ran crying to him, confessing what I had done. He held my tiny woman hands in his great big lumberjack ones, tough as leather, as I cried, "I wasn't being a team player."

Then our visitors, the nasty tattletales, came running to inform my great big lumberjack husband what his little woman had done, how she had gotten too big for her petticoats. I waited anxiously for his response.

And then my great big lumberjack husband started singing, in a voice as big and old and rich as the forests he cut down. He sang to those silly people, telling them that sometimes the strongest man is the one who listens to his wife. It was a beautiful song, tender in its words and strong in its tone.

And my great big lumberjack husband put his hands all the way around my waist and picked me up and laughed a great big man laugh. And I loved him.