SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

On this date 25 years ago — a chilly, overcast January day here in Wine Country — KJ and I were wed.

What’s the secret of being married for 25 years? No secret, really. It’s the same as with anything. If you keep doing something without quitting, eventually you’ll have done it for a quarter-century. Assuming that you survive that long, of course.

In my case, the fact that KJ doesn’t own firearms has helped.

Seriously, though…

Anyone who can put up with my eccentricities for a third of a lifetime deserves a ticker-tape parade down Market Street, a Congressional resolution, and a handwritten letter from the President. (Those of you who know me personally know that’s true. Even then, you only know a fraction of it.)

Until KJ’s health took a hard left turn three years ago, we traditionally celebrated our anniversary with a vacation trip somewhere. It was our way of acknowledging the fact that we couldn’t afford to take a honeymoon when we first got married. Over the years, these sojourns have taken us to many intriguing locales — some more than once — including…

• Lake Tahoe (the North Shore on our first anniversary; South Lake some years later)
• Monterey (our favorite hotel: the Spindrift Inn on Cannery Row)
• Greater Los Angeles (we once spent an entire day visiting as many SoCal shopping malls as we could manage in 12 hours)
• San Francisco (I backed the car into a post in the hotel garage)
• Hawaii (thanks, Jeopardy!)
• Disneyland (we were there for a fairly strong earth tremor one year — fortunately, we went elsewhere in 1994, thus missing the massive Northridge quake)
• California’s Central Coast (if you’ve seen Sideways, we’ve been there)
• Reno (hint: ship the buffet at Circus Circus)
• Las Vegas (most recently, for our 20th)

Mere minutes before the midnight start of our 15th anniversary, I was involved in a serious multi-vehicle accident coming home from a chorus rehearsal in the East Bay. Needless to say, we skipped the trip that year.

Thank you with all my heart for the past 25, my love. And here’s to whatever future God grants.

This entry was posted on January 19, 2010 at 11:57 am and is filed under Hero of the Day, My Home Town, Reminiscing, SwanStuff. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.