“My mother told my father no three times. On the third time he got wasted at a local bar and basically started pouring his heart out to any one who’d listen. Mind you, it’s a very small village in the Italian alps and my father barely spoke Italian and no one in the village spoke English, including my mother. Word got back to my mom about this sad American at the bar so she went to find him and she told him she’d marry him.

My parents celebrated their 44th anniversary last month.”