Fifty years of marriage. That has such a nice ring to it. A Golden anniversary. We had a great celebration then and relish it every day.
Now we’ve been married 50 years and 2,920 days. We’re starting our 59th year. Of course, we’ve been together longer than that. Altogether, we’ve been a “thing” for 61 years. For our big day, we’re spending it at home. No appointments or errands today. We’re eschewing a loud and expensive dinner for something simple right here. It’s a good day.
Morality plays. Character studies. Life-lessons. We watched a television episode of Wagon Train from the early 60s. My head is still spinning.
The story wasn’t told in this order, but this is what it was about. Two youngsters, squeezing bleeding hands together, swearing “blood brothers”. Later in life, one losing his sight, they both fell in love with the same woman. The discord resulted in a gunfight in the woman’s room, and she was shot and killed. The hero of the story was so true to his blood-brother commitment that he didn’t tell his going-blind friend that he hadn’t even drawn his gun. The woman was killed by a ricochet off a brass bed post from the going-blind guy’s gun when he shot and missed. The good guy didn’t tell his friend, who turned out to be the bad guy, so he, the friend, wouldn’t feel bad. He was that devoted a blood brother.
The result is that the other guy continued to go blind and spent the rest of his life searching for, and plotting revenge against, the blood brother who killed his woman. In the final confrontation, years later, wouldn’t you know, the good guy never pulled his gun and the bad blind guy shot at him, missed, and got killed by his own ricochet off a rock.
And the moral is…
Only 108 days to the 37th Americas Cup!
https://www.americascup.com/37th-americascup-barcelona
Taking place in Barcelona this time.
The competition was initiated by the British in 1851 with a race between the British and the Americans around the Isle of Wight (53 miles), with the prize being a silver cup. The race was won by the Americans, the winning boat being named the America, and thus the name of the cup for all the races since then. The Americans successfully defended the cup 24 times in a row, for 132 years, until 1983 when Australia took it away. The cup, originally provided by the British, has been held by the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. The Brits, of course, want the cup back, but in all these years, have not managed to get it. They created the cup itself but have never won it.
New Zealand defending. Britain, Switzerland, Italy, USA, and France battling for the honor to challenge New Zealand for the cup. The America’s Cup itself begins October 7th. The Louis Vuitton Cup, where the challengers all race each other to determine who gets to race New Zealand, starts August 29th.
The boats will be about 20 meters long, with masts almost 37 meters high, and will fly above the water on foils, achieving up to 10 times the wind speed. Expect 40-50 knots out of sailboats!
The charge for attending to watch the races? Nothing. No ticketing. It is open to all. Some of us might watch it on television.
…of the Baltimore Oriole.
A driveabout with our heads out the window.
We drove on slow roads so the wind wouldn’t make Henry have to get down out of the window.
And a walk in a puppy park.
It was really interesting.
Don’t know how many more of these he gets. He has lost so much weight his harness just hangs on him. No more eating again. He is still in good spirits, making the most of it. He chased his ball in the house and brought it back three times today. Judy is still mostly in the recliner at night, recovering from the knee surgery. We all sleep on chairs and the couch in the front room.
