Last Wednesday marked
the 19th anniversary of the day Shauna and I wed, and to commemorate
the event Shauna put together a Facebook album of nineteen photos whose
chronology spans the length of our relationship so far. I knew her back when I
had hair, and it was black, not grey! One of the last photographs in the series
was taken recently as we got our cars serviced at the local Honda dealer. How very
romantic! But they say one picture speaks a thousand words, and what I see when
I look at that photograph is contentment. I also see a codger. Shauna looks
better than the day I married her, and I thought men got better looking with
age. Not me ... I’m Festus. Let us have a brief moment of silence to
acknowledge the swift passage of time. Most of all, that series of photographs
reminded me of all that Shauna and I have seen and shared to this point. There
is the photo of us standing outside Ron’s Fish N Chips in Blind River, Ontario
where we had a delicious meal one hot summer night driving home from Banff. I
remember meeting Ron and learning a little about his colorful life, and I
remember photos lining the walls of his restaurant, showing Ron and his buddies
on their many fishing adventures. There were the timer shots of the two of us
on mountaintops overlooking the Bow Valley and the turquoise glacial lakes of
Alberta, and British Columbia. Over the years, Shauna and I hiked hundreds of
miles over the trails of the Canadian Rockies – no mean feat when one considers
that Shauna has several chronic disabilities. There is the photo of a much
younger (and wilder) me wearing a Lady Godiva wig at a party in Rochester, N.Y.,
making a silly face as the then unmarried Shauna looked at me with an
embarrassed and confused smile, and perhaps just a smidgeon of disgust (I still
get the same look from time to time). There is a timer shot of the two of us
standing in her father’s boat in Katrine, with our 6’cardboard cutout Mountie “Dudley”
whom we “liberated” from the Chateau Lake Louise one night after a long hike.
We walked right through the main lobby of the hotel and into the parking lot
with it. In that photo we were just about to go out on the lake and scatter
some of her brother Jordan’s hair on the lake to commemorate his recent passing.
Before he died he implored “Don’t postpone joy,” and that has been our motto
ever since. Jordan had a great, albeit twisted sense of humor. One day, shortly
after his unsuccessful brain surgery to remove a malignant tumor, he was
sitting in a car waiting for his mother to come back from some store, and a
vagrant came up to the window next to him and begged for money. Jordan rolled
down the window, pulled off the bandana he was wearing to reveal a nasty
unhealed incision on his head, and he said something like “I’d really like to
help you out, but I’m saving up for my next surgery, and this time I think I’m
going to let a doctor do it!” We brought Dudley along for comic relief. In fact
there have been many photos of us taken with Dudley, from all across Canada,
and he now stands in a place of honor overlooking our great room from the loft.
Indeed we rescued him from his undignified sentry position outside an
overpriced jewelry shop in the hotel. Mounties do not hawk jewelry. There is a
photo of the two of us looking suntanned and relaxed, I believe standing
outside a goofy restaurant called “Le Tub” in Hollywood, Florida. I remember
the grounds of this restaurant were littered with old toilets and other
bathroom fixtures and I also remember they were known for their burgers, if one
could maintain one’s appetite.
That photo series was
a good idea, because it jogged my eroding memory. I find that as the years pass
more quickly now, it is more important than ever to reflect back on the journey.
Don’t live in the past, but certainly acknowledge it. Our marriage has not been
perfect, what marriage is, but when I see these snapshots of time’s passage I
am reminded how much richer the trip is with a companion. Thank you Boo for
these past two decades, and I hope you can go all nine rounds with me, because
it has been pretty interesting so far.
Somebody mailed a
letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg which was laced with the deadly poison
ricin. It might have had something to do with Bloomberg’s stance as a gun
control advocate. There has been an outbreak of a Sars like virus in Abu Dhabi which
could become a worldwide threat. I remember how frightening it was when SARS
surfaced in Toronto, and how it decimated the local Asian business community.
Antibiotic resistant viruses scare the hell out of me. Is it the death of the Tea
Party? U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has announced she won’t seek
re-election. To me she and her TeaBagger buddies were the nail in the coffin of
the Republican Party, but the elephants had been paralysed by boneheads and
extremists long before the Teabaggers became a political force. Yet another
super cell storm blew through Oklahoma last week on the heels of that
devastating EF5 Tornado that leveled Moore. And finally, a moment of silence, Edith
Bunker died! Actress Jean Stapleton (no relation to Maureen Stapleton) passed
away last week at 90. I loved Edith. Comic genius.
Written by Jamie
Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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