A Letter From The Editor
FEBRUARY 2016
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
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elcome to Parker County
Today’s 10th Annual Romance
Issue. It seems like a few months ago
that PCT founding Publisher Steve
Markwardt and I were brainstorming about a theme for our February
issue. Steve, who was the ultimate
romantic, had two ideas. I was to
choose between them. One was for
a romance theme and the other was
to explore the end results of poor
life choices like smoking crack and
drinking while driving. Oddly, I
chose romance — the artwork potential was more attractive. Romance,
we agreed, was something that just
about everyone craves, but few find.
That was a decade ago and I still find
the subject intriguing. I also find it
interesting how dramatically different
the perception of romance can be
from one person to another.
I was reading one of those odd
celebrity magazines a while ago in
the waiting room of my dentist’s
office. It featured an interview with
Angelina Jolie, who was, at the
time, married to Billy Bob Thornton.
They each wore matching lockets
containing their spouse’s blood.
Sweet, don’t you think? Yeah.
Me, neither. The important thing is
that they thought it was romantic.
Although they divorced in 2003, but
remain friends, both still insist that
the bloody locket thing was romantic,
not creepy. OK, then.
I always thought that when it
comes to romance, actions speak
louder than words and those
gestures are more impressive than
greeting cards. As famed French
writer François Rabelais once said,
“Gestures, in love, are incomparably
more attractive, effective and valuable than words.”
One of my favorite grand
romantic gestures was celebrated
in the book Do the Birds Still Sing
in Hell? by World War II British
POW Horace Greasley and Ken
Scott.
According to his memoirs,
Greasley escaped from a prison camp
to be with the woman he loved —
more than 200 times.
Greasley was a British soldier
who was captured by the Nazis in
1940 and interred in a work camp
in Germany. There, he met the love
of his life Rosa Rauchbach, a Jewish
woman who worked as a translator. Early in their romance they
were separated when Greasley was
relocated nearly 50 miles away, to a
different camp.
But the young Brit was compelled
to make a grand romantic gesture, or
you might say 200 of them. Greasley
broke out of his prison camp more
than 200 times, journeying to see
Rosa, and then he’d return before
anyone knew he was gone. Other
POWs helped him to carry off these
grand gestures of romance. Greasley
was liberated in 1945 and it looked
like they would have a chance at
happiness, but Rosa died in childbirth
shortly after the war.
They don’t make a lot of guys
like Greasley any more. I’m not sure
there was ever an abundance of
them. His story was written with the
help of a professional journalist when
Greasley was nearly 90 and has
come under fire from some folks who
hate when anyone does anything to
remind anyone of the atrocities of
Hitler or the Holocaust. But, being
sort of a free-thinker, I found the
book inspiring in the way it shows
that even when people are going
through hellacious trials, there still
can be something of beauty and joy
in life and romance.
I’ve always been captivated
by the lives and loves of Britain’s
monarchs, but my favorite historically
royal, romantic story is the one
about King Edward VIII, who
chose a woman over the throne
of England. Edward became king
in 1936 following the death of his
father, George V. His brief reign
was plagued by controversy, mostly
because of his romance with a
divorced American woman, Wallis
Simpson. Rumor had it that Simpson
was a German spy. Edward had to
choose between Simpson and his
crown. In a hugely romantic gesture,
Edward abdicated the throne as the
year 1936 came to a close.
Edward married the woman he
loved in 1937 and they spent the rest
of their lives together in France.
Another of my favorite grandly
romantic gestures is one carried out
over two decades by the famous
baseball player Joe DiMaggio
for Marilyn Monroe. While their
marriage lasted less than a year,
DiMaggio was apparently in love
with her for the rest of his life, even
though she really was a mess to live
with.
Their brief marriage began and
ended in 1954. DiMaggio sprung
Monroe from a psychiatric hospital
when she suffered a mental collapse
after her separation from famed
writer Arthur Miller. Legend has it
that DiMaggio was planning another
proposal to her. Those plans were
scuttled by Monroe’s death in 1962.
Whether the rumors of the proposal
plans are true or not, DiMaggio never
remarried. He also never granted an
interview about Monroe. A kiss ‘n tell
book would have garnered millions
for DiMaggio, but he wouldn’t do
it. His grandly, famous romantic
gesture was a simple but sweet one.
DiMaggio sent red roses to Monroe’s
grave three times a week for 20
years. That’s romantic.
I am a sucker for grand, romantic
gestures, but perhaps the grandest
gesture of all is when couples get
married and stay married despite all
the obstacles, arrows and lures that
this society throws at married people.
There’s a lot of propaganda telling us
all that we all could do better than
staying with the person we’re married
to. There is a multitude of morally
bankrupt yet attractively packaged
pieces of human garbage who like to
stalk happily married people. They
seem to consider it a big victory to
break up a marriage. There’s the pace
and pressure of making a living and
raising children in a world where
things tend to be valued more than
people.
Perhaps the grandest gesture of
all is being together for decades and
still managing to be the person your
husband or wife would rather spend
the evening with than anyone in the
whole wide world.
Happy Romance,
Marsha Brown,
Publisher and Editor
Parker County Today