Connecticut Coed Weds Jersey Boy

Mr. and Mrs. John Brownrigg request the honor of your presence at the wedding of Ann Grace Brownrigg and Timothy Joseph Carroll on Saturday, the eleventh of August in one thousand and nine hundred and seventy nine at eleven o’clock at Christ Church, Redding Ridge, Connecticut.
It may have seemed an unlikely pairing at the time but here we are thirty years later about to celebrate another milestone.

The first time I met my future wife, she was administering a swimming test for counselors at Camp Weequahic in Lakewood, Pennsylvania. She had the whistle and the clipboard and I had a very slim chance of swimming four laps. The outcome was predictable and I failed the test.
Those who worked as overnight camp counselors know that the best week of the summer is the week before kids arrive. Staff members work all day and usually head to the nearest town for refreshments at night.

That was my plan when I offered a group of counselors, including the future Mrs. Carroll, a ride into town. The following night I repeated the offer but forgot to invite everyone except the future Mrs. Carroll.

I know the topic of marriage didn’t come up that night. In fact, the subject wasn’t breached for several years. But there we were in the bustling town of Hancock, New York trying to recreate our brief twenty years of history.

In a romantic comedy movie I would have told her she the most attractive lifeguard I’d ever met (she was) and could she possibly rethink that swim test score. A more dramatic script would have me offering charming comments (not a chance) about the summer we would spend together. In an action movie, we would be pursued through the Pennsylvania woods by thugs in velour running suits and big chains. I probably wrote a column about their father Carmine.
In the reality show of life, I probably opened with a probing question like “where do you go to school and what’s your major? What an opener.

I did learn that we both shared a desire to get out of the house for the summer. I was beginning my fifth summer as a counselor at various camps and she was facing her first. Neither of us would finish out a month at Camp Weequahic though and it wasn’t because of the guys with the big chains.

Two weeks later, I realized I’d had enough of summer camp life after five years. When I confided that thought with Ann – she admitted she couldn’t wait to leave. So we did.
I graciously offered to drive her home to Connecticut which was not exactly on the way to New Jersey but – let’s just say we had lots more to talk about. Maybe this could be a romantic road trip movie instead.

We retired to less exciting jobs in New Jersey and Connecticut and kept in touch before we headed back to college in opposite directions - New Haven (CT) and Murray (KY).
Many letters and hours of late night phone calls and a few visits back and forth kept the long distance relationship running until I graduated and moved back from Kentucky.

True to the romance movie formula, we broke up for a few months and then saw the error in our ways. The topic of marriage was finally breached in a serious way and we were married the following summer on August 11, 1979.

The story of how we came to be married thirty years ago hardly deserves a spot on the shelves at Blockbuster. Long ago it would have been moved from the college humor section to the drama pile and now to the faded family section.

That’s ok with me but this week I think it deserves to be in the Employee’s Best Picks section under romantic comedy.
Happy anniversary Ann.