DATE: Monday, June 9, 1997                  TAG: 9706070030
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 
                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

A PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE THAT BOGGLES THE MIND

A BRILLIANT notion will often go unacknowledged. For example, take my suggestion for raising the upcoming exhibit at the Chrysler from the level of the interesting to the realm of the spectacular.

Alas, it has gotten nowhere.

The exhibit is ``With This Ring: A Portrait of Marriage,'' which opens at the Chrysler on Friday. It's a collection of 41 photographs by the distinguished photographer Mary Kalergis. The museum says the exhibit ``offers a unique and compelling series of portraits and observations about individuals and the institution of marriage.''

And I'll bet it does, too.

But that doesn't mean it can't be made a helluva lot more unique and compelling. And that's where my brilliant idea comes in:

Take a photo of Margaret Hunter and make it the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Hunter, 26, is a Virginian who has been very much in the news lately. You likely have read about her.

A circuit court judge in Alexandria recently awarded her $264,000 in damages. That's because she met what she thought was the man of her dreams on the Internet and discovered - FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE MARRIAGE - that he was a she.

Hunter, an administrative assistant from Alexandria, met Holly Anne Groves, 26, in the fall of 1995 on the Internet. She says Groves called herself Thorne Wesley Jameson Groves and told Hunter she was a jet-set businessman dying of AIDS - a circumstance that kept ``him'' from being intimate.

The pair was married last April at a fancy hotel with an expensive reception, all of which cost Hunter $9,500.

The evidence was that Groves bound her chest with bandages, saying she had rib injuries from a car accident. Yet Hunter's suspicions were not aroused until four months after their marriage vows when Groves did not appear to be getting sicker or receiving medical bills.

The light bulb of reality flared in Hunter's head when Groves' parents called and asked for ``Holly.''

It was then that Hunter began looking for her husband's birth certificate and discovered he was a woman. No Sherlock Holmes she.

But let us give Hunter credit for believing she was doing a humanitarian act by marrying a man with AIDS. But FOUR MONTHS!

Surely there were other tiny flags of warning that escaped Hunter's attention earlier.

Never did Hunter wonder why her husband always sat down in the bathroom?

Never wondered why he never shaved his face?

Never wondered why he always seemed to pick up his clothes and put them in the laundry hamper when most husbands just let their duds drop to the floor?

What was wrong with this clueless woman? Why was she going to the unnecessary trouble of finding a birth certificate when exhibit A was there inside her husband's undershorts/panties, as the case may be.

It is simply too much. I have heard of pristine innocence in marriage but nothing that equals Hunter's story. It reminds me of Michael Jordan, somehow.

When Michael Jordan turned professional, the astute sportswriter Frank Deford said that the National Basketball Association had never seen anything like the Bulls' guard.

``He has raised the game to a level unseen before,'' Deford said. And that is what Hunter has done with bridal naivete.

I know a good idea when I think of one, and placing Hunter's photo front and center in that exhibition of marriage photography is just what the Chrysler needs. People would walk for miles barefooted - and over bad roads - just to see it.

Better still, why not invite Margaret Hunter down for the exhibit? As part of the photo display, there will be a workshop on intimate relationship skills at the museum - on Sunday, June 22. Surely she could use a dose of that. The poor dear is nearly fresh out.

I like that title: ``With This Ring.'' Kinda captures the boxing spirit of marriage. And, trust me, that Hunter photo could make it a knockout.

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