Fifty

Sometimes, when I'm looking to get a handle on what I want to write (and many people have suggested that I just put it all in a bushel basket with no handle) I lose myself in music. Songs from the past bring back thoughts better than a diary could.

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the day Peggy and I met and fell in love and went on a blind date that is still going on.  And as older couples will do, we have fallen into a happy routine, part of which involves me riding the exercycle until it's time to come upstairs for a cup of tea with Peggy as we work the Wordle. (Two heads are better than one.) 

And then! before dinner, we watch a rerun of Ozzie and Harriet, which connects us to our golden youth. Inevitably, at the end of the show, the "impossibly handsome" Ricky, to quote John Waters, sings a song, and he's backed up by the great James Burton on guitar. James is shown here over Ricky's left shoulder, putting his Rickenbacker through its paces on "Believe What You Say." 

You know about James, even if you think you don't. The pride of Dubberly, Louisiana, just played an all-star concert in London three weeks ago at the age of 83. But you know him as Elvis's lead guitarist for the last eight years of the King's life...and for the way E would holler, "Play it, James!" when it came time for the guitar solo. Elvis told James that he used to watch him on Ozzie and Harriet, playing for Ricky, and that's how he got that job.

So I'm on the way to the doctor the other day and up pops song # 2251 out of the 2648 tunes I have on one of my favorite thumb drives. It's Elvis doing "The Wonder Of You," (and calling out to James) and that is the song that makes me think of Peggy and how lucky I was to meet her fifty years ago, look into her root-beer colored eyes, and fall in love with the wonder of her.

"I guess I'll never know the reason why" she loves me. We can't explain love; we just live it for 50 years, if we're this lucky.