Belching and Smiling

Thirty years ago, today, Mari and I were married at our half-finished log house on a wooded hillside in Northeast Iowa. We came in, with Michael and Daniel, on a horse drawn buggy, down a sunflower-lined lane, to a fine gathering of friends and relatives, to salmon from Alaska, cooked on planks over wood fires, to a jazz band, to a solemn high picnic, the liturgy of which baffled Mari's Dad for years, until he figured out that it didn't matter, anyway. He was more interested in the horse, anyway.

Both of us had been married before, and neither of us has married again, nor do we plan to. We were, and are, one of the examples of people who did not get it quite right the first time, and maybe not the second time, either, but glad it happened the way it did. Thirty years!

It was a hot and humid day in Iowa; beastly hot, and humid. The next day it cooled to perfection. Soon after, we moved to Tucson for three years, for graduate school, and here we are, again, for the third time, on another hot and somewhat humid day, in Tucson, thinking about what a good thing we did, three decades ago, and glad.

Yesterday, we celebrated Michael's birthday, as we celebrated his eighth birthday, on the day before our wedding, at the same log house. This time, Teresa did the cooking.

We have no special plans for this day. Our newest grandson is here, for a few hours, belching and smiling, as we are.

Maybe tomorrow we will make big plans, but I suspect not. Maybe we will just belch and smile.

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