|
“Celebrating 50 Soon”
On December 18 my beloved and I will observe our 50th anniversary. This is a pretty big deal, so we've been thinking about how to celebrate it. Many people go somewhere exotic at times like this. Last night Judy asked me what I would like to do. I suggested we go bungee jumping. This, you know, involves attaching an elastic cord to yourself and jumping off a tall structure of some sort. Just before you hit the ground, the cord snaps you back from splattering and you just dangle there.
I remember seeing news reports a few years ago about a man doing this on his 100th birthday. He plunged more than 200 feet. There was a picture of him in the newspaper. He looked a lot like the farmer with the pitchfork in the famous painting, “American Gothic.” Except he was wearing an old World War I, leather, aviator's cap. There he stood with a rather stoic look on his face and the earflaps of his cap curling up on the sides of his head. Beneath the picture was the caption that explained: “He felt a little ill after the jump, asked for his teeth back, went home and took a nap!”
My princess didn't respond immediately to that suggestion, so I tried again: “We could go rafting down the Nantahala Gorge over in the mountains. The river which is icy cold in the middle of August would be truly arctic in mid December. We could set the Guinness world record for goosebumps.” I reminded her of what fun we had when we were younger and took the grandchildren on such an excursion. That was only 20 years ago and 20 years can't have made all that much difference in our physical condition. She listened patiently and finally said: “Please put your shirt on and quit being disgusting.”
Then we began to chat about how content we are at this point in our lives. We have gone through the process of simplifying our lives. Last year we divested ourselves of 50 years of accumulated stuff. Moved into a cozy apartment. We don't buy much anymore. We spend lots more time at home. We laugh a lot. Finally, she said: “I would like to have a little gold chain. And I would like to go out for a nice steak dinner. I can't cook steaks very well anymore.” More than 50 years ago she was the National Jr. Cook of the Year. She's still the best I know! A simple celebration sounds terrific to me.
Coincidentally, yesterday I was looking through a pile of clippings and notes that I have tossed into a box through the years. Who knows why they caught my attention and caused me to save them? My strong, neat penmanship suggests that I was much younger when I wrote one little page with two items on it. The first was a comment by a wife about her husband: “When I first met him I noticed he was outstanding in his field…in the rain.”
The second bit was the following: “A wife shot her husband at short range. The homicide investigator asked the officer who was first on the scene. 'Any residue of powder on the body?' The officer replied, 'Yessir. That's why she shot him!'”
Here is my theory to explain why I kept these old notes. In the first case, I have often been found out standing in the rain. The second story may explain why my sweetheart has never shot me!
|
