Monday, February 9, 2009

Nathan Gunn Whispers Sweet Nothings...

...unfortunately not in my ear, but in his wife's. Sigh.



I found this article while looking through some old University of Illinois Alumni magazines for an engineering article for my son. It leapt up and slapped me in the face - a true OMG moment. I was lucky to hunt and peck online to find it there.

Here's the link:

http://www.uiaa.org/urbana/illinoisalumni/0701_b.html

Such a nice article about Nathan and Julie Gunn. It's interesting to see that they were apparently predestined to find each other. On the other hand, if my 20 year old son had told me he was getting married...well, let's just say we would have talked quite a bit about it beforehand, then he would have done exactly as he wanted and I would have supported him, albeit hoping it was not a mistake.

It seems very young to me now, but reading the article it also seems as though Nathan was aware of that and worried a bit himself. Perhaps he has an old soul. My once 20 year old sons were more concerned with video games, football and basketball than love and I was very glad for it. That's not to say that they didn't want them some womens - it's more like they did not find "the one" in college. That might have been my fault. I did not get to college due to "love" and had my oldest daughter when I was 19. I hammered into all my children that they had time for that once their education was complete. So Nathan and Julie must have been very special to know what they wanted and not to worry about finishing school or money or any of that back when they were that age. And their parents must have been special, too, to support them through that process, which I assume they did. Good on ya, parental units!

Anyway, good article and clears up some of my questions about their lives, which, admittedly, are none of my business. It's just that I think of my six kids and our lives and the business of it, getting everything done everyday, getting everyone everywhere, let alone being an international opera singer...well, it boggles the mind. People often ask me how I did it and I think that once you're in it, and you're doing it, you just DO IT. You don't think about the how or the why and I'm often truly startled when I think of all we actually accomplished when they were young. No international trips on the scale of the Gunn family, but we went somewhere every year in the summer, lots of driving trips (couldn't afford air travel back then) and we managed to see most of the U.S. in a good way. I think (I hope) all of my kids would say they had a great time and education (even if they fought me all through the Little Bighorn National Battlefield - Mom and her stale old history). But just imagine if I'd been able to afford to do more.

Making their children citizens of the world through international travel can only benefit the Gunn kids. Tolerance is achieved through understanding of different peoples and cultures and I think the Gunn family has it going on already. Good for them.

3 comments:

Susan said...

From what I can see, your kids adore you, so you must have done something right.
Do they know about all your celebrity boyfriends?

Maria said...

Adore may be too strong a word. Tolerate is more like it. You know, that crazy Mom, embarrassing us all the time, etc.

Yes, they do know about most of my celebrity boyfriends. In fact, for the last nine years I have had a Pierce Brosnan Film Festival over the Thanksgiving holiday. When they all still lived here they would bring their friends to watch the movies that I play back to back for three days. It's a lot of fun, and even now I have some of their friends call up and ask if they can come over.

We took the grandkids to see Mamma Mia and I told my granddaughter that Pierce was my boyfriend. So now, everytime she sees the movie or Pierce on TV, she runs up and tells me that "my boyfriend" is on. It's funny.

Susan said...

Cute. My mother is mixed up and thinks that Juan Diego Florez is my boyfriend. "Your boyfriend got married," she told me last year. Um... no... my boyfriend already was married!