FROM THE ARCHAIC PAST

All that follows is lightsome and airy-fairy, artful to a fault and faulty to an art. In the near future, I want to copy some poetry by Donald Hall that I recently was reading.

Two photos follow. Both photos are copies of photos, thus grainy and not too well defined. Howsomever—the first is a picture of my wife and I getting married in the Buddhist community center in Spokane, Washington, not a temple. Mertie and I occupy the central, lower section of the first photo. Many in attendance were Mertie’s Buddhist brothers and sisters as well as her immediate family while another contingent was made up of my friends and very immediate family—sons and daughters and granddaughter. The unusual feature of this service was that it was the first wedding performed in the facility and the Buddhist community was very gratified that Mertie and I so honored it.

Mertie and I had a tea ceremony, we read poems to each other, mine by e.e. cummings and hers by Sandburg. Then we sang to each other harmoniously:

I love you a bushel and peck,
A bushel and a peck
And a hug around the neck,
A hug around the neck
And a barrel and a heap,
A barrel and heap,
And I’m talking in my sleep
About you. . .
About you.

O, I love you a bushel and a peck,
You bet your pretty neck, I do. . .
Tootle loolte lootle,
Tootle loolte lootle,
Tootle loolte lootle looooo.

COOKIES AND MILK

This is me and two of my three best male friends in the world at the reception following the wedding. The third is in Ohio, back where I came from. A man is lucky to have one or two very good friends in the world. I’m fortunate to have two, plus one extra. I only wish I was as much a friend to my friends as they have been to me. What is a friend anyway? How does one know? How does one make such a judgment?

Mertie and I served milk and cookies for the reception and not much else, though the cookies were the huge sort that you find in espresso joints, baked by a very good local confectionary (the Rocket Bakery). Some might call us cheap, others frugal, others wise, but to Mertie and I, me on my fourth wedding and she on her third, this was a fun and lightsome event we concocted because love made our feet to grow wings and our limbic hearts to sing, not to be burdened down with gifts borne to us nor large expenses borne by us.

Another friend and his girlfriend wore black clothing and longish coats and dark fishnet hose (girlfriend not guy), verging on the Goth, in sympathy with the terrible error they thought weddings symbolized. Loved them very much for being themselves, and now they have gone off into the great unknown of lost friends who one thinks about but can no longer account for. Mr Mike, where have you wandered too?

MATH BLUES

Am now a week into my Algebra course at SCC and arriving at the lair of the dad-rat-it quadratic equations and all their ilk. Will I ever make it as far as the dungeon of the Calculus monster before my mind fails completely and I find myself with a booger on the end of my finger, not knowing how it got there?

A NAGGING DOUBT

Like any codger, I wonder sometimes if I'm repeating myself. How many times have I shared this info on my blog since its inception less than three years ago? I hope it's the first time I've put in the photos.