Forty Four

All these years under the bridge, and also standing on the bridge. Forty four years ago today I discovered how nervous I was maybe twenty minutes before we said I Do. Or I think we said I Do. We could have said anything at all, I can't remember.

I feel sure my new wife promised to honor and obey me, but she says it never happened, especially the obey part. I remember how hard we searched to find a clergyman who would not use the word "God," but in the end he did.

My friend and best man locked himself in the flower freezer at the nursery and barely made it out alive.

The fool across the street tied tin cans on our rental car and chalked "Amateur Night" across the rear window.

I remember my new mother-in-law, so ill and trying so hard to smile, which she most certainly did, as she talked with my mom. We are so much older now than they were then.

Plandome, Long Island, Sept. 26 1970, me in the white suit and Barb in the white dress. She had made all the clothes, ours and her sister's too.

And then, BAM, out to the farm. And then Dan. And then to Miami and then to L.A. And then Bron. And then, BAM, Staci and Bellybone and then San Francisco and then Desmond. And Cuban food tonight. And there you have it, the whole works in one short paragraph. Up to here.