Graffiti done right
Mr. Pam Declared his Love For Me in a Very Unusual way
It was 48 years ago, but the memory of it still warms my heart.
There’s a well traveled underpass that will always and forever stand out in my memory and it looks something like the one above. It’s a few miles away from the small suburban town where we live and I used to pass under it on my way to and from work everyday.
I’ll never forget one particular morning when all of a sudden I saw the big red letters painted on the plain concrete walls that said, ‘AL LOVES PAMI — 11–23-74.’ Although it was 1979,’ the date was when we got married and our 5th anniversary was just a week away. He did it as an unusual anniversary gift that didn’t involved wood, which is the customary gift.
I could not believe my eyes! And I had no cell phone to flip out to take a picture of it. UGH
I no sooner got to work when I got a call from a girlfriend who also lives out here as she and her husband had seen it on their morning commute too. I heard her laughing as soon as I answered my phone. “You lucky girl. Bob and I just want to know how and when did he do that! And better yet, did the cops catch him?” Her call caught me completely off guard so I had no idea what to say. Besides I was so excited I wanted to get off the phone and tell a few co-workers what my amazing husband had done. As a fraud investigator I realized very quickly I had to be careful who I boasted to because it was graffiti after all. Or, what we were trained to think of as ‘defacing public property.’
His declaration of love made it until the weekend which was a few days later before a county crew showed up and painted over it. Graffiti wasn’t prevalent, nor appreciated back then, so they took care of it right away — Darn them.
Mr. Pam took a picture of it and so it became immortalized and we have it as proof he actually did it, but neither of us can find it at the moment.
So there you have it. Mr. Pam is the man in my book and he will stay my one and only one forever. Have you ever received an unusual gift from someone that you treasure? If so, please tell me about it in your comments. I’m dying to read them!
Thank you for reading and thoughtful writing everyone!