Guest- Julia Spencer-Fleming

Jessie: In New England where we have been having some wild weather!

It is a great pleasure to welcome my friend Julia to the blog today. Her books are wonderful, as are her company and outlook on life. Take it away, Julia!

I know the Wicked Wednesday theme this month is the very appropriate March Madness, a phrase that brings back so many memories… of me making bowls of stew and trays of snacks for my dear husband.

Let me take you back to the heady days of the 1980s in Washington, DC. I was a graduate student at GWU, and I happened to meet a funny looking handsome guy who was attending law school at the same university. On out first date, he took me for drinks at a chi-chi Georgetown bar, dinner at Au Pied du Cochon, followed by dancing at an African night club. I told you they were heady days.

On our second date… he took me to a Georgetown basketball game. 

I can’t say I didn’t know what I was getting in to.

My husband, Ross, was a genuine basketball nut, a combination of growing up in Maine cheering for the Celtics and graduating from Georgetown, which, in the 80s, was at the peak of its record-charting years, led by power forward Patrick Ewing and legendary coach John Thompson. No, I didn’t know who these men were before meeting Ross. Yes, our son’s middle name is John. It was intended to honor my dad, but Ross may have privately thought differently. 

The aforementioned dad was one of the few American men I’ve known with zero interest in any sport other than competitive gliding with his sailplane. No hockey, no baseball and certainly no basketball. And the guys I tended to date before that fateful meeting in DC were – well, my mother called them “The A’s” – an anthropologist, an actor, an author, an artist. You know the type; soulful, poetical guys with shaggy hair and no money. Ross was another breed of A: an attorney. When I told my mom we were getting serious, she prayed a Novena for him to propose. He did! I wish I had asked her what saint she used; I’d do the same for my own kids.

Over the years, I learned the rules of March Madness. No, the first rule wasn’t “Don’t talk about March Madness.” We talked about it ALL the time. The paper bracket would be spread over the dining room table, along with annotated Sports Illustrated articles. (It was such a great magazine! A curse on all private equity firms.) The kids got quizzed about the various divisions during dinner. Ross would get into conversations with random guys who also happened to be filling up at the gas station. No, the rules were:

Do not plan anything that clashes with an important game.All games are important games.During Georgetown games, the foam “Go Hoyas” finger must be carefully positioned by the TV.All family members must wear their Hoyas T-shirts/sweatshirt/sweatpants. Failing this, an all-navy-and-gray outfit is acceptable.You can make as much conversation as you like, as long as you wait until the commercials.Meals and snacks must be easy to eat while staring, riveted, at the screen, and shouldn’t contain anything that might stain the sofa or rug when G’town scores and Ross leaps from his seat screaming. (This was my rule, after some experience.)You can root for teams in the following order: If G’town wasn’t playing, any other Catholic school in the Big East Conference. 

If no Catholic schools were playing, any other team in the Big East, except never, never, never Syracuse. (Where I was from, but let it pass, let it pass.) 

If it wasn’t a Big East game, it’s acceptable to root for a Big Ten team.

Every other conference is just critiqued, not cheered.

I haven’t watched March Madness in years. It’s not the same without my funny looking handsome basketball nut. I hope they have March Madness in the next world, played by the best of the old boys on squeaky courts of perfect, shining maple. And where Georgetown is never, ever *peeks through her fingers* in tenth place. Hoya Saxa!

Readers, are there any passions or pastimes brought into your life by a loved one?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING is the New York Times bestselling author of One Was a Soldier, and an Agatha, Anthony, Dilys, Barry, Macavity, and Gumshoe Award winner. She studied acting and history at Ithaca College and received her J.D. at the University of Maine School of Law. Her books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Nero Wolfe, and Romantic Times RC awards. Julia lives in a 190-year-old farmhouse in southern Maine.