Well, 52 years ago on August 15 we were married by Judge Sidney Feinberg in his chambers at the Santa Clara County Municipal Court. My parents and my grandmother Lind were there with us, along with Meda’s mom, and my sister and her husband.

The surging Covid-19 case counts derailed the small anniversary party we had planned for last night. Instead, it got a lot smaller, with an old friend and former neighbor joining us for dinner on our back deck. The weather cooperated, and no one complained about our rowdiness. I made a bowl of potato salad based on my mom’s recipe, and a batch of sweet peppers stuffed with ground turkey, sausage, chopped onion, mushrooms, zucchini, raisins, a little rice, three kinds of cheese, spicy tomato sauce, and some dried spices, and a handful of fresh basil. Meda made one of her fantastic green salads. We opened a bottle of champagne, followed by a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir. After dinner, I sliced and fried several apple bananas in butter until they were browned, sloshed in a couple of spoonfuls of triple sec in the last minute or two, then served them with vanilla ice cream.

I suppose one good thing is that I had bought some pricier wine than usual for the planned party that didn’t happen, and now we’ll just have to work our way through it ourselves over the next week or two.

I have trouble with the number. It can’t possible be 52 years, but that’s what the calendar claims, and its backed up by a lot of documentary evidence. How do you properly celebrate 52 years, along with the ones to come? We’re going to just let it happen. We have minimal plans for today. We will start with breakfast at the Elks CLub overlooking the ocean this morning, and will end the day sharing a couple of pizzas this evening with good friends who will be driving in from Kaaawa. Other than that, we’ll just coast. Nothing special because it’s all special. We are amazingly lucky.

We are both old enough to remember this line by Walter Cronkite.

“What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.”