15,082 days

June, 1972, was not memorable for music, what with top 10 records like "Nice To Be With You" by Gallery and "Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond topping the charts that month.  Not even "Tumbling Dice" by the Stones or "Hot Rod Lincoln" by Commander Cody can make up for those atrocities.

In fashion, the best that can be said about these clothes from the Spring Sears catalog from that year is that it looks like everyone worked at Burger World in 1972.

Hurricane Agnes tore Maryland all to heck at the end of the month, flooding Ellicott City and tearing up roads all through Central Maryland.

1972 was a down year for the Orioles, who were at the time considered the best team in the American League. They had won the AL pennant in '71, finished a disappointing third in '72, and got back to the playoffs in '73.

You could get a real nice deal on an 8-track player for your car that month, while a digital calculator would put a $395 dent in your wet-look wallet.  A plane crash in the Andes left 16 survivors who were eventually rescued and admitted to cannibalism, and people flocked to the movies to see "The Godfather."

A proud moment

And of course, G. Gordon Liddy, thug-in-chief to the president of the United States, Dick "Dick" Nixon, led a hapless band of burglars into the Democratic offices at the Watergate complex in DC, where they attempted to do dirty tricks, only to be caught by a security guard.  Liddy went to jail and then, still in need of serious psychiatric attention, began a career in radio, doling out advice to people willing to seek advice from a lunatic. Little is known of Nixon after these events.

My wonderful Peggy

But my favorite event of June, 1972 (the 12th, to be exact) is that my wonderful wife Peggy, who had just about a year until the fateful night that we met, fell in love and went on a blind date that has yet to end, took a job with the law firm of Hymes, Keyes and Simmons in downtown Baltimore.  Through many changes of name to the firm, four different office locations and more coworkers than Adam Levine has tattoos, she has been there, day in and day out, for more than 41 years, and today she is retiring.  There's a lunch in her honor at noon, and that's that!

For all these years, Peggy has been the one who knew where the Hasenpfeffer Files were, as well
as how to order more postage for the postage meter and who fixed the electric typewriters (then) and computers (now).  She kept the books for the firm, kept her bosses' schedules straight, typed, printed and mailed at least a million letters, worked hard all day long and then came home to me.

And that's what she's doing today at noon, forever!  Thank God and thanks to everyone at her firm and all of her friends and coworkers past and present for the warm sendoff.  As of Monday, let's see if she jumps out of bed at 0515 again!

Congratulations to my Peggy, the best woman in the entire world.