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Skip and Karen Finley have been married for 41 years and live on Martha's Vineyard. He was a longtime executive for Carter Broadcast, the country's oldest black-owned and -operated radio company, and now is the sales and marketing director for The Vineyard Gazette on Martha's Vineyard. He also writes the Oak Bluffs Town column. Karen is a math educator for Renaissance Christian Academy in Pittsburgh, commuting monthly for her work. They have two grown daughters and three grandsons. Following is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.

How did you meet?

Karen: Through a mutual friend in Boston. We were all at this guy's house, four of us, shooting the breeze, and I actually thought that Skip was full of himself. I wasn't impressed. He was talking about his car, this little sports car and how it was out front broken down. Then we all left to go pick a friend up from the airport and in the lobby of the building there was this little red tricycle; as we're walking out he just got right on it, said see you later and rode away. He didn't look back or smile or anything. It was the funniest thing ever.

Skip: That same friend then brought her to an opening at a gallery that I owned during my junior and senior years at Northeastern. I'd already figured out that this was somebody that I liked and afterward we went to a party and stayed there late late late. I said, "Why don't you come back to my place" and she stayed and I wouldn't let her go.

You were immediately an item?

Karen: There was no real dating; we just kind of met and stayed together and never separated.

Skip: We met first in October, went out that night together in November, were engaged in December and married in May.

You were both still in college. How did your parents feel?

Skip: None of our parents were too fond of this whole idea. I was voted least likely to be monogamous in high school and throughout college my mom pretty much told me not to bring any more women home. But when they met Karen they immediately fell in love. But they thought she was making a huge mistake. They sat her down and told her that I was an idiot and ne'er-do-well and they called her mother and told her mother she was making a huge mistake. And the whole time I'm sitting there.

Karen: Well, this was the '70s. It was like, this is what I'm doing. What could she say?

What was your wedding like?

Skip: We were supposed to go to Virginia for a small family wedding, but we kind of messed that up and didn't make it. I don't know that this is for print; we were stoned. We just filled out all the paperwork for the marriage license and a friend of ours mailed it to Virginia.

Karen: I told him that was not for public knowledge! I don't know that my mom ever heard that story and she didn't appreciate us not showing up.

Skip: There's a story in the middle there. We were engaged in December and in February we went to the doctor to get birth control pills, but when we got there the doctor said, "Well, it's too late for that."

Karen: Kharma was born in October. We were married in May.

So you were young parents. Was that hard?

Karen: He pretty much left the child rearing to me. His four words were "Go ask your mother" and mine were "don't listen to him." I don't know that it's the proper way to raise a child, but it's the way it was. I always wanted to be a mom, but if I had it to do over again, I may have insisted that he take part more. But I was a child too and didn't realize. I was happy to take the responsibility because I couldn't imagine anything more worthwhile.

Skip: I'm about the least mature person you've ever met. But we were young, we didn't have a clue.

No arguments about child rearing?

Skip: There was one big argument, back in '73 or '74 after Kharma was born and she was toddling around. On Saturdays we would sleep in and so she'd get up and get herself something from the kitchen. We took turns doing everything; cleaning, dishes. One Saturday there were about a dozen broken eggs on the floor. We couldn't remember whose turn it was. I said I'm not picking it up and she said she wasn't either. On Monday afternoon one of her friends came over and was getting a beer in the kitchen and said, "What the — —!" I told him it was Karen's turn to clean and she said it was mine. We screamed and hollered and cursed. I'm pretty sure she cleaned up those eggs.

Karen: I don't remember who cleaned it up, but probably him since he remembers it so well.

You both left school before Kharma was born?

Skip:

We were married on May 6. Then we went to Martha's Vineyard, where my family spent summers — my father was very successful, he started one of the largest black-owned engineering firms, Ewell W. Finley. The following Monday, I began my career at WHDH-TV in Boston as a floor director and quit Northeastern that afternoon. Karen left Wheelock College in the fall, but got her math degree magna cum laude in 1995.

We moved around, Boston, Pittsburgh, then we lived in Washington, New York, back to Washington and then here in Martha's Vineyard. I owned some radio stations in Washington, Nebraska and Utah. I sold all those stations and we spent a year playing with a yacht I got from the Carter Broadcast Group, riding it up from Coconut Beach to Chesapeake Bay. Then I went back to work for the Urban Radio Network as their C.E.O. I did that for about five years and it wasn't much fun, so I retired to Martha's Vineyard.

Karen, how did you feel about moving around so much for Skip's work?

Karen: There were times when I didn't want to and didn't. I made the decision that I didn't want to move while our oldest was in high school so Skip commuted from New York to Utah. I do think that maybe I would have had a career, but you can always go back and say what if. I'm teaching math again now in Pittsburgh and really enjoying it but I always put family first and I guess that's what made me happiest.

Skip: It was kind of understood when I became an executive that there would be times where I had to work and be away. I call it hardly working, because not everyone is blessed enough to be in the media business, but it was hard on the kids. Karen and I talked all the time so I was up to date on everything that was going on, but I wasn't the dad going to the school play.

Karen: Now I am the one traveling for work. It's difficult for me. After like, a week and a half I think, "O.K., I have to go home now." The rule is we call each other twice a day at 6 o'clock and 11 no matter what. Whoever is away is responsible for the call. Now I'm also texting with him all day long.

What other traditions do you have?

Karen: All conversations end in"'I love you." No matter what. If we are arguing and someone hangs up without saying I love you, now that might be grounds for divorce.

Skip: Always dinner together, and never leaving the house without saying, "I love you." And Naked Thursday.

Naked Thursday?

Skip: It's what keeps us in shape. There is nothing like naked Thursday. You don't have to do anything, but you've got to take your stuff off.

Karen: I don't know why he started telling people about Naked Thursdays. You can come, but you gotta get naked — it keeps the visitors down.

How do you get through tough times?

Karen: We don't argue a lot, but when we do it's usually whoever has the strongest feelings wins. If it means that much to you, here, take it.

Skip: Folks hollering at each other, we don't understand that. Someone will be mad and pouting, but I don't want her mad, I don't want to see that, so if something comes up, I fix it. She can anticipate what is going to upset me. Work situations mostly. There are things that I want to take a chainsaw and cut your car in half, and it won't have bothered her in the least.

What has made the marriage last?

Karen: Being opposites has helped because we never expected to be alike. Trying to make someone different than who they are, I think that's where difficulties come in. We just grew well together.

Skip: We have been so lucky to be so compatibly incompatible.

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