Happy 75th birthday to my husband, Bob

Bob's high school days, mid 1950s

Bob at Vigeland Park, Oslo, August 2011

So, why on Bob's 75th birthday, do I feel so old? Maybe it has to do with the library of memories from all the years we've been together that I carry around with me.

The first thing that attracted me to Bob happened way back in 1963. I had just started working at TRW (precursor to Northrop Grumman) in a writing and editing group that helped engineers with their reports and proposals. One day I was sitting in my little half-walled cubby hole that didn’t have any doors and heard someone speaking to the woman who sat in the cubby hole next to mine. I found the voice very distinctive and articulate. Plus, the man speaking never shut up – why am I not surprised? I had never heard this voice before so I had to get up and go out into the common area and take a peek at who was speaking. That’s how I got my first glimpse of a tall thin man with blond hair cut in a buzz and blue eyes pretty much hidden behind black-rimmed glasses. That was it. I didn’t see him again for another three years, and the rest is history.

Our wedding day, May 28, 1970

I didn’t write a birthday poem for him this year. Here’s the one I wrote for his 65^th.

A 65^th Birthday Poem for Bob

It seems like yesterday that we first fell in love

You were focused, driven, so sure of yourself

In your crisp white shirts, wild ties

And well-worn brown or black shoes

The only shoes you owned.

Your straw blonde hair was neatly buzzed

Your passionate blue eyes

Well hidden behind black rimmed glasses.

You don’t look a lot different from those days

Over thirty-five years ago

Except for a few lines in your face,

And a waist that has grown an inch or two.

You still even have the buzz.

You are a true Renaissance man.

Though your forte is science and mathematics,

You can recite a Shakespearean sonnet at the drop of a hat,

Quote Goethe’s couplets to a room filled with a hundred engineers.

Play guitar while belting out

Honky Tonk Woman or The House of the Rising Sun.

And spend your leisure time at 

Racket ball, golf, Sea Haven Towers, Ultra Yatzee, solitaire

And your daily and two Sunday crossword puzzles.

Nothing happens in the morning until the crossword is done.

Those who know you will admit

You can be a tad impatient

Especially behind the wheel.

You would rather drive through a maze of side streets

Than wait for a traffic light.

Every chance you get you wield your lead foot

Like a weapon of mass destruction.

Ignoring my protests and cries of whiplash.

You’ll just speed on,

Pointing out other lawbreakers along the way.

You were a hard guy to reel in

But, once I did you were truly committed

To me, your sons and even your mother-in-law.

You fell in love with our boys from birth

Never shying away from changing a diaper

I can still picture you carrying them around on your back

Telling them in your teacherly way about the world around them

Or going on and on at the dinner table about one subject or another

Until they had to escape squealing, “He’s lecturing again.”

And before you want to escape from this little lecture

One last thought:

Throughout the bumpy E ride of our years together

You have been my rock, my anchor, my strength

You’ve worked hard for your 65 years.

So, I raise my glass to you, my love

And, wish you many, many more happy birthdays

Good health and a lot more fun in the years to come.

I love you.