Some time back, I believe when Wayne was a brigadier general in the Army JAG, he married Marie Dommer.  Everyone who knew them was delighted for both of them.

Bill and Jeanie Suter had a party for them and everyone was supposed to bring a pound of something as a gift.  Now, it is easy to think of a pound of coffee or even a pound of candy, but people had to be pretty imaginative to come up with other pound gifts.  When we came up with a pound of potting soil, I figured I had better write a poem.

My favorite Marie story was when Wayne retired to become the Dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Law.  They were moving into their new house and Barry Switzer, the OU football coach, came over to say hello.  Marie introduced herself and mentioned that Wayne was the new dean of the law school.  Barry then said, “I’m Barry Switzer.”  Marie said, “Oh, are you also with the university?”  I love it!


                                           Ode to a Bad Gift

A pound of this, a pound of that,
What a great idea for the night.
We’ll play them a prank, to hell with his rank,
Maybe we’ll short circuit a light.

Well, we scratched and we fought for an original thought,
Long hours over this we did toil.
But, when nerves grew frail and Dart Drug had a sale,
We decided on potting soil.

While the present may sag and leak through the bag,
And the package becomes very light,
The advantage is clear, it’s quite cheap, my dear,
And that certainly counts when you’re tight.

I ask you, is a gift from the ground fundamentally sound?
It certainly is no panacea.
So to make the gift special, we slipped in the vessel,
A plant called a peperomia.

Now, the plant ain’t so great and its size and its fate,
May never cause people to remark.
But for Wayne and Marie, people shout wild with glee,
It’s a match that will glow in the dark.

So the effort was spent and our idea became bent,
Like a pipe cleaner wrapped to another.
Then it came like a zing, they don’t need anything,
Cause what they got is they got each other.