I respect and value the many social media tributes people often offer each other on their anniversaries, and I cherish my beloved Joan Kenerson King after 48 years of marriage. But I can’t quite resist the temptation to tell a story as my tribute. If I dare risk echoes of what was said of Aslan the great lion in the Chronicles of Narnia, that he was not a tame lion, one of the lessons I’ve learned to grasp and then mostly to savor over the decades, after some initial stupefaction, is that neither did I marry a tame partner:

So back on that spring 1978 day I’m still in shock that marriage means you have to care about the other person and be with them all the time etc. etc. Plus she just doesn’t walk fast enough in Paris on our honeymoon. In a huff, I energetically cross a street, Joan gets stuck on the other side of a busy crosswalk near the Arc de Triomphe (I have a picture), and I’m like good grief, woman.

So, osteoporosis still a distant nightmare, I powerwalk on to the Paris Metro. Except behind me as we enter the station filled with très élégant et sophistiqué Parisiens there is barking. I look back. I am stunned. Lagging far enough back to be heard throughout much of the station is my beloved. WHAT the?!!!&*###$?

“Well,” says she, not just cool but icy as a cucumber, “I figured if you were going to treat me like a dog I’d act like one.”

At anniversary #48 the word tame still seems not quite to apply. But I’ve come to grasp that the husband in this equation did deserve what he got. And, as one of my daughters said after being reminded of this story and celebrating her mother’s self-assurance at such a young age, “Dad, you met your match. She was The One.”

—Michael A. King, publisher and president, Cascadia Publishing House LLC, writes on Substack and blogs at Kingsview & Co. He is experimenting with integrating and complementing his blogging with Substack posts.