A Long, Long, Time

Can you imagine living with the same woman, day after day, over and over again for 12,054 days? Long time, huh? Well, that’s where I am. Today we celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary. The day started with Robin going out to sit in a lawn chair and catch some sun. I stayed inside, finishing the morning dishes, drying them and putting things away. Then I ran the vacuum cleaner on the rugs and finished up the galley by scrubbing down the tile flooring. I like to get down on my hands and knees for that as it does a much better job with a scrub brush and bucket as opposed to one of the swiffer things. Almost done now. Put the finishing touches on the coach by dusting and giving the cabinets a good coating of Pledge orange oil and buffing them down. Perhaps you can see why one woman wanted to stay with me all these years. Now it was time to go out and join Robin in the sun.  Intermittent sunning and misting ourselves with the garden hose gave way to a walk down to the jacuzzi. After a half hour in the tub I was almost whipped so we decided to cruise around the area for awhile  We drove over to the  Randy Parton owned Carolina Crossroads Music Theater to find it devoid of life and on the “for sale” block.  Drive over to a cotton field and examine a new phenomena for the both of us. Kneading the cotton between the fingers, feeling the seeds inside. My mind rolls back more than a century. I pondered on Eli Whitney and the imagination of a man who saw in his mind’s eye a way to mechanically extract that seed from the plant without destruction. I’m amazed, always, at brilliance. On to historic Halifax as it’s advertised to take in some local history.  There are some older historical buildings of note but the only “bringing history to life” evidence we found was a woman melting wax for sealing letters. She did make for quite the photograph, however. On down the road to the Hickory Meadow golf course bordering I-95. A nice setting and a level course.  Haven’t seen a course without hills until the past winter in Florida, so I thought I’d give a round a try. Robin’s knee is still in rehab so she decided she would drive the cart and play caddie for me today. Getting hotter by the minute, the humidity kept pace with the mercury. Sweat would roll from the brow just by the mere effort of thinking. But inside the pro shop, I found that a round of golf, including cart, was a whopping $17.  Yes, that’s not a misprint. I typed seventeen dollars.  So let the games begin.

I have been a caddy as a teen. I have been referred to in the past as catty. And my wife can be confused at time with chatty kathy. But this is the first time in my life that I’ve had a caddie. To top that off, I shot an 81. That’s the best score I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know if it was my caddie, tempering my swing. Take it back slow, swing easy, and don’t try to kill the ball was incessantly reminded to me. Or the fact that I didn’t have to drive, negotiate the course, draw a club from the bag, or procure my putter. This was all done for me by my sidekick for the day. Or was it the fact that she kept score and perhaps cheated for me a bit, lulling me into thinking I played well, and my mood would be easy. She’s smart like that. So to top it off I took, my caddie, my wife, and the woman I’m sleeping with, all out to dinner to celebrate “trips-twice”. Steak and shrimp and a bottle of wine. A nice way to mark the memorable occasion. We toasted to another 33 years. Sounds a long time but I’ll only be 90 and she, 88. So to make sure I get to that milestone, it will be back to the routine tomorrow to keep myself young. I think I’ll hem her gown she’ll wear as the mother of the groom, wipe down the ceilings while I’m getting the laundry done and a few moments of sewing some button replacements back on a few of her dresses. I sure hope so as in the afternoon I’ve some baking I have to get done.