Remember When I Was Young And So Were You

 Dear Wingman,

Today I will say to you what I wouldn’t say ten years ago on our 30th: “Happy Anniversary.” Agreed, that year was a sucky time, but if I had just heeded Three Dog Night’s advice in “Try A Little Tenderness” I might not still feel so bad about being a bitch that day.

Anyway, that was then; this is now and I want to remember our wedding day. If you were here we’d be rolling our eyes about everything from getting married in a nor’easter to having the top of our wedding cake stolen.

I remember the priest saying such sweet, personal things about the two of us.  Did you know that my parents went to a wedding two weeks after ours and he gave a verbatim homily about that couple? Pretty crazy that our doppelgängers became drug addicts and one robbed a bank!

Remember them still putting up wallpaper at P-House the night before our reception?  It looked so awful and we were convinced that it wouldn't be done in 18 hours. They got the wallpaper up but the varnish on the trim was tacky. After it burned down, it was an empty lot until the town built the new firehouse there after Sandy. I considered having a celebratory drink in front of it today, but I'm pretty sure the police next door are not using the traditional 40th anniversary ruby handcuffs.

Who could have thought that our huge wedding party would, for the most part, still remain my/our friends? Two are still single but the rest are all married with only one in a questionable relationship. True, I don’t speak to three of them anymore but they were the three that wouldn’t speak to you either.  As it turns out, I was out with one of my bridesmaids on Friday and she said she "still has some of you on her nightstand".  After she took "you" to the Mike Mussina statue at Camden Yards and Babe Ruth's House, she was going to sprinkle you on your high school football field but never made it there. She said you've been in her sock drawer for a while, and yes, I did joke that it was better there than in with her undies. Or in the spice cabinet. Besides her, I know I’ll hear from one of your guys this morning like I do every year, just saying he remembers. We made good choices in all of them, whether they were there for a reason, a season, or most importantly, a lifetime.

Hearing “Pretty Lady” reminds me of you and the Chazz guys playing that day, which was great since our paid band never learned the song we picked. Or did you tell them that the Gladys Knight and the Pips song I wanted was lame compared to the last song you chose? True, Ronnie is up in Rock 'n Roll Heaven with you, but I still see a couple of them along with the female sax player...and I need you to tell me why she and the rest of the horn section weren't invited. Two band members came to your mom's funeral service last December and we spent the night doing a lot of remembering.  And aside from the band, I wish you were here to laugh about the guy who went home with your co-worker's underwear. To look at the pictures and be shocked at how many of the couples are no longer together.  And how many have passed.

Remember Italy and honeymooning in Venice, Florence and Rome? Seeing fireworks from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Me working on a holiday candy line at the factory in Perugia?  Well, besides two trips to Italy, our cruise from hell and our last trip to Korea, I've traveled with the kids to Hawaii (you're at the Arizona Memorial and in the Pacific from a Booze Cruise), with the girls to Amsterdam (you're in a tulip patch), and Ireland with my mom (sorry, I forgot you that time), but, you'll be back there next summer when son #1 gets married in Sligo.  And maybe you'll get to go to Italy if I can convince son #2 to take you along. He wasn't there when you went to Yankee Stadium with us, so don't count on it.

Our kids have grown up to be great guys with some of your better traits and fortunately, very few of either your or my flaws.  The oldest just started a vegetable garden to rival yours, doing his best to outsmart the hungry neighborhood deer. The middle guy has a grill and smoker that you would kill to own and master as he has.  And the youngest can grill or pan-fry a steak to perfection...minus your addition of pine-scented rosemary-still a running joke at dinner, as is the Uncle Buck salute and the Wachovia toast.

So let me say it again: Happy Anniversary. This is the one day that you being gone bothers me more than any other.  Your birthday is your day, just as mine is celebrated by me.  This one should be ours and it's not anymore. Tonight I'll click my ruby slippers, sip a ruby cocktail, and remember a rainy day filled with lots of family, friends, laughter and love.