12/8/73 - 12/8/11

Magic
It must be magic
The way I hold you and the night just seems to fly

Easy
For you to take me to a star
Heaven is that moment when I look into your eyes

Those are words from the song "I Just Fall In Love Again," written by Steve Dorff,  Larry Herbstritt, Gloria Sklerov and  Harry Lloyd and performed, with varying levels of sophistication, by Anne Murray, Dusty Springfield, The Carpenters, and Artie Lange.

The song describes very well how I feel about my wonderful wife of 38 years, (as of today): the marvelous Peggy.  The term "varying levels of sophistication" is, of course, also a reference to me, a man once described as a Tony Danza sort of guy with a Martha Stewart sort of wife.

Unlike Martha, Peggy never served a bid in the federal slam (unless she did it in her early teens) but she is classy, proper, elegant, appropriate and, well, just so great about everything all the time.  She works hard at work and then comes home and works hard at home, never with a complaint.  She manages our finances with the wizardry of a CPA, she deals me with with the wisdom of a wise adviser, and in recent years she has taken on the somewhat confusing task of being my mother's bookkeeper, juggling those payments and checks perfectly.

Here's the thing about Peggy: we don't agree on very much, but we do agree on love.  She likes those books where self-appointed gurus tell people how to control their fate by meditation, and I like books in which people go to diners a lot.  She likes Enya and Yanni music.  I like everything from Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm to Ke$ha, with the exception of Yanni and Enya.  She likes to watch Self-Aggrandizing Old Oprah, I like to watch Grand Ole Opry. And don't even ASK if she wants to watch Jackass in any of its iterations.  She does not.

We wouldn't seem to be a match except for one thing: I love her totally, unconditionally, and constantly.  I can honestly say that there has not been a nanosecond in these 38 years that I wished for my situation to be any different. She is the first thing I think of in the morning, and the last at night. People kid us at parties and supermarket openings because we stick together.  That would be because I am never "tired" of her, I've never heard everything she has to say, and I can't wait to hear what's next anyway.

38 years!  I could tell you how much the world has changed in that time, but in many ways, it hasn't.  People are still getting up and going to work in cars, buses and trucks: the modes of transport predicted on The Jetsons have not come to pass.  People still come home from work and watch situation comedies or Monday Night Football.  And we still love to be loved, and to love in return.  I don't see that changing, no matter how many more decades come and go.  You can have a lot or have a little, but if you have love, you're lucky, because that means a lot.


Yep, we'll be going up to Friendly Farm to celebrate our anniversary, after our great-nephew's birthday party.  We'll giggle and guffaw just like on our honeymoon, and the only difference is, in 1973 we were looking only forward to spending our lives as one.  And thirty-eight years later, we get to look forward and backward.  


Happy anniversary to my wonderful Peggy!  I love you!