In the local news column of TwinCities.com, a pretty great story can be found. What's so great about Ramon Granda and Joe O'brien? They represent the LGBT fight for equal-marriage rights. They represent enduring and heart-warming love. They represent progress in this America. Best of all - they represent the thousands of couples who got to celebrate their first Valentine's Day - married.
Here's a bit of their story.
Ramon and Joe met in Chicago as neighbors in the same apartment building, on July 14, 1960.
"It was in the hallway where we lived. We just started chumming around with each other," Granda said. "It wasn't difficult at all."
O'brien was a chef and wanted to start a restaurant. He considered moving back to St. Paul to do it. But after meeting Granda, they decided to create a restaurant, pastry shop, and gift shop out of a vacant building. "Looking for dining excitement?" was the motto they used in their newspaper ads. Reviews of the restaurant in the Pioneer Press described it this way:
"(It was) one of the wackiest and most wonderful places around." There were flags of every country of Europe, and a mural of Prague painted by O'Brien dominated one wall. The dining room was simultaneously spotless and jammed full of Christmas decorations. The restaurant proudly displayed the health inspector's report on the front door.
The business was essentially a two-man operation -- O'Brien in the kitchen and Granda waiting tables. After a long day at work, the couple went home to an apartment next to the restaurant.
Joe and Ramon finally decided to get married last year after equal-marriage became legal in Minnesota. Granada casually talks about the proposal:
"I just asked him. I said well, 'Do you want to get married?' "He said, 'It's up to you.' "
"There were no prenups," O'Brien said.
It
sounds very casual, but their neighbor and witness at the wedding, Tara Obrien, begs to differ. She described it as more emotional and said they were in tears:
"Ray, I do, I do, I do, a million times over," O'Brien said at the ceremony.
"I love and cherish you Joe, for the rest of my life," Granda said.
The couple live with their dogs, Sally and Molly, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
"I love him very much," said Ramon Granda, 83, left, about his partner Joe O'Brien, 82, of St. Paul, Thursday January 23, 2014. "I'm living a life I never dreamed," said Joe
Many of us look forward to hearing more stories like this. It's sad that Joe and Ramon had to wait as long as they did to marry. It's wonderful and beautiful that they did.
You can read a bit more on the story and see a short video of the couple by visiting Pioneer Press/TwinCities.com. Credits to Richard Chin for the story, and Jean Pier for the photos. Special thanks to Facebook Group, Freedom To Marry.