Some readers will instantly recognize where I got the title for this Hub: The classic movie starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep, Defending Your Life, was all about standing up to that which you fear most. If you did that in the life that just ended, you got to continue on to a higher plane. If not, you were required to reincarnate again...and again...until you got it right.

Whether or not the movie's viewpoint "got it right" is a question for philosophers, maybe scientists, and certainly the deeply religious among us...and I leave it to them. When it comes to defending my wife, however, I am on highly familiar turf. Pam and I met in late 1996 at a laundromat in Tonopah, Nevada. A tiny "Tinker Bell" redhead and one time Olympics qualified gymnast, she stands all of five feet tall and weighs a whopping 92 pounds.

Perhaps that is why an astounding number of larger people think they can pick on her. They really do. She warned me up front, unwilling to let any man walk into her karmic situation without being aware of the possible consequences. If I'd ever had any doubt she had the right of it, that doubt would have been dispelled a few weeks after we met.

In Tonopah, one takes one's entertainment where one finds it. Both of us rather liked the town of 1500 Souls, but "places to go" included no more than a few bars and restaurants. One of these was the Mizpah Hotel, a true historic building with a resident ghost lady on the fifth floor. Neither of us saw this ghost, but then again we had no reason to climb any higher than the casino and restaurant on the first floor.

One Tuesday evening, Pam asked to go with me when I had supper at the Mizpah. She had won a ticket for a sizeable cash drawing to be held at the casino that night, but you did have to be there to win. Having been homeless for 2 1/2 years, a chance at even a few dollars was not to be ignored. But, she told me, there was a bartender who worked in the Four Aces across the street who did not like her. She had done nothing to earn his enmity...other than show zero interest in his romantic advances.

What red blooded American boy could resist a setup like that? Of course she was welcome to both a ride and an escort with attitude.

After we'd eaten, but a few minutes before the scheduled drawing, we settled in at two of the video poker machines. Our personal rules were identical: Each of us would play a single $2 roll of nickels, zeroing out unless we happened to double the original investment, which did happen from time to time--and at such time, we would call it a good night and quit while we were ahead.

The drawing went to someone behind the bar, which naturally raised a few eyebrows among those of us who were not longtime locals, but oh well, we were enjoying ourselves anyway. Until.

Mr. Adversarial Bartender did indeed show up. The area behind us and to the right was open floor space until the main entrance doors some thirty feet distant. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fellow stop on his way to the street from the bar. He spun, pointed a my-finger-is-a-pistol at Pam's supposedly unprotected back, snarled, "YOU!!" and started toward his target.

As stated, Pam is five feet tall and weighs 92 pounds. She has black belt level training in two martial arts and could have torn this man apart, but it was not her town--nor mine either, for that matter--and the Mizpah staff knew him, not us. He was not a huge guy, maybe five-seven, 150, but certainly a minimum of half a foot taller and half again heavier than the girl at my side.

I'm five-eleven, about 170 at that time, and I'd promised the redhead she'd be safe. Pivoting smoothly out of the tall swivel chair provided by the casino, I was instantly on an intercept angle, moving toward the incoming troublemaker.

"She's with me," I told him very quietly. It was winter, and I had on a puffy ski jacket that may have added twenty pounds to my appearance. Most likely, it simply had not occurred to him that the man sitting beside the girl who would not date him...at any rate, he stopped like he had air brakes. His 180 turnabout was instantaneous. Somehow, without actually running, he was out the door and gone so quickly I couldn't have caught him if I'd wanted to.

That's the night defending my wife really began, and continues to this day. Of course, more forces attack my sweetheart than mere aggressive humans. Loneliness, for instance. For a time in 2005-2006, my Pammie lived with her adult son in southern Arizona. They needed some "rebuild" time together, so I rented a house for the two of them. But the young man had his own life, the husband (me) had a home and a life in Montana and could be with her only about one week a month, and she was terribly lonely much of the time.

Zach, her son, found a partial answer: Kitten Precious, who was a true lifesaver for Pam as well as vice versa. (To see Kitten's page of knock-knock jokes, click!)

A close friend had once told me not to count too much on our friendship because, in his words:

"I always have to take care of my own camp first."

His meaning was clear: He was married to a great lady, and if it ever came down to a hard choice between feeding his mate and watching his friend die a horrible death, I'd best be well prepared to check out the Great Beyond. Yes, it did make sense...but not until meeting Pam did the depth and truth of it all sink in to the bone.

Why? Because year after year, I've needed to "take care of my own camp first". So often people do decide to assault Pam--either verbally or physically--for no apparent reason. A few (of many) examples include:

1. Doctors with overbearing attitudes who clearly see her as a brainless twit (never mind her measured IQ of 144 or her college degree in Pharmacology) or some other form of lower life. I once personally snarled in the face of a Montana M.D. who had arbitrarily cut the dosage of one of her key medications (she is disabled, with an unbelievable number of ailments that would have killed an ordinary person a thousand times over). In fact, the Doc had done this without even telling us he was going to do it. My precise, enraged words were:

"You! Can't! Do! That!"

And that doctor was one of the good ones. Fortunately, this man took it rather well. Most M.D.'s would have simply called the cops at that point, but he did not. Instead, he wrote out a new prescription on the spot...for the original dosage...and Pam ended up treating with him for three more years, until we moved to Colorado and, coincidentally, he moved back to his native town in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He probably played poker rather well, too, as I could not read him as being shaken by my confronting him...but it did take him three tries to write the prescription out correctly.

2. Pam was on SSI (disability income) and Medicaid when we met. For more than nine years, our primary relationship was that of caretaker and caretakee in many ways. But when she moved to Arizona in late 2005, things changed. Medicaid was quite helpful and transferred her records a bit slowly but effectively. The SSI caseworker, however, as good as called my girl a welfare fraud: Since she was paying (from her disability check) just 20% of the rental cost for the house, with her son working to cover the rest, and since she only used 20% of that space, she should have been good to go.

The caseworker, however, decided as follows:

Since you're living in a more expensive house, we're going to cut your disability income check. (Governmental logic!)

And they did. By nearly a third! She called me in Anaconda, Montana when she got the letter, telling me she wasn't sure she had it in her to fight another one of these wars--and there had been several of them over the years. Without hesitation, I told her,

"Well, honey, I've told you from Day One: If the government gave you too much grief, we'd just get married and tell them to keep their money."

And we did. The caseworker seemed to be in shock; she had clearly expected any result but that--after all, no one walked away from a government check and almost free medical care...did they? Why...her job security could be threatened if they did that!

3. In 2003, we were returning from southern California to Montana after Pam's mother's funeral. To say she was stressed would be extreme understatement. Apparently, it seems, there tends to be a pretty serious connection between mother and daughter, and the breaking of that tie--or at least the stretching of it, depending on your spiritual viewpoint--can be a doozy of a Soul tester.

Add to that the fact that my girl gets altitude sickness. We had landed in Seattle to change planes. Many of us were on our feet in the aisle, but the doors were not yet open. Pam was holding an air sickness bag to her face, trying not to lose it, when a heavy woman in the seat ahead of us decided to pick a fight with her.

Huh? No, you read that right. This lady (I use the term loosely) actually threatened Pam, saying that if she did get sick, and any got on her (the speaker), she would hit Pam.

Huh. That did it. Pam called her out on the spot, offering to mix it up thoroughly as soon as they could get outside to do so. In a momentary lull in the verbal hostilities, I leaned down to murmer in my future wife's ear,

"As soon as that door opens, you scoot on ahead as quick as you can. Get outside, we both know this terminal, get some air and a cigarette. I'll find you there."

She nodded, and shortly the door did open. But we were at the very back end of the plane, the door was at the very front (not counting the cockpit itself), and the hostile lady's husband thought he was going to be a problem. You know, side with his wife. He stood at least six-eight (I'm not exaggerating), wearing shorts of all things, with tree trunk legs. The instant the door opened, he threw one of those legs out to the side, fully blocking the aisle in front of my sick little girl.

To this point, I'd said nothing either of these people could overhear. Time for that to change. Instantly I bull-roar bellowed in full warcry:

"HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!!!!!"

What he thought was behind him, we have no idea. That right leg of his, however, shot back to the other side so that he stood rigidly at attention. He looked straight ahead, too, afraid to look around at what might have snuck up on him. Pam shot through the gap like a pro football player running to daylight. I waited until half a dozen people provided "cover" between him and my redhead, then spoke quietly up over his shoulder:

"We're probably all better off with her on up ahead, anyway."

Turning his head finally, but only a few degrees, he agreed just as quietly. No more was said at our end, although the copilot had heard my warcry and somehow knew it was connected to Pam--who had an airline employee waiting at the gate with a wheelchair for her. She could walk, but not for long. When he asked, she told him the bare outline of what had happened, adding,

"That was my husband."

Not that we were yet married, but it saved a lot of explaining. Anyway, the copilot--who looked like pretty burly, no nonsense kind of man--at first asked if I needed help. When assured that no, that was not likely, he then promised nothing bad would happen to me even if I had to kill both of them (Mrs. Bad Mouth and Mr. Big Leg). Apparently he did not like people arbitrarily picking on his disabled passengers who were also in bereavement. He even offered to detain the offenders for a few hours, just to make them sweat, or to help us press charges, whatever we'd like.

Since we'd mostly like just to change planes and get on home, he settled for that.

After more than nine years like that, defending my wife long before she even became my wife, it did make sense to write her a love song when we did finally tie the knot:

In our culture, men are expected to back up their spouses, and vice versa. I believe many if not most of us do just that. Fortunately, not eveyone gets quite as much practice as I've been offered these past dozen years. Senseless aggressors have ranged from the self appointed "Bully Of The Mountain" near Craig, Montana who required an actual streetfight to settle things...to the police officer in Sierra Vista, Arizona, who thought he might just take my lady to jail (again, for no cause except that she was close to having an epileptic seizure)...to one of her own adult daughters!

There are two daughters. One is an outstanding human being who dearly loves her Mom; the other is an outrageous individual who believes everything wrong in her life is Mom's fault!

At any rate, being married to Pam is never boring...and scary at times or not, she is definitely worth defending.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32