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.

      

Logo shirts and prickly cacti

I just came back from a retirement party for Gibby Gilbert, a graphic artist whom I had worked with for years at Northrop Grumman. He is a true character. He always did a great job even though he complained a lot and worried that we’d never get our work done on time for our proposal deadline. He was an incredible asset to any proposal he worked. And when he wasn’t very busy he would walk up and down the halls, and if he had any news or gossip, he always stop by my office to clue me in. He also bought old logo shirts at thrift shops and wore a different one every day. At holiday time, his shirt was always very appropriate. So today we were asked to wear a logo shirt or a Hawaiian shirt, his second favorite kind of attire, in his honor. (I wore a bowling shirt I bought to wear to a fifties bowling party a few years ago - the team logo is on the back and the name of the bowler, Frank, is on the front.) 

Gibby says now that he’s retiring he’s going to give them all back to the thrift shops – I think that’s a great idea. He must have thousands.

It is always great to see my former colleagues. I’ve been gone from the Proposal Operations department since the end of April 2010, though I never mind coming back in the building for an occasion such as today’s or to meet some of the folks I used to work with for lunch. And I must say, a lot of them supported me and bought my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, when I had my book launch.

One of the people I mentored when he first hired into our proposal department came up to me today and said he finally finished my book. He said he couldn’t read it very fast, but now after almost six months he’s done it. And he was happy to tell me the thing that impressed him the most about my book was that he could understand the poems. Since he never was very much into reading poetry of any kind, he now says he’ll look for more books formatted as mine is – a little text, a poem, a little more text, a poem, etc. And I had worried so much about adding poems into my manuscript at all. Fortunately I did. So many people have told me how much the poems I chose to include in the manuscript have enhanced the message of my book, that it makes the writing seem more real and heartfelt.

So, for today, I’m going to post a poem from my book - the poem my former colleague says made him laugh out loud as he was reading. And even if you haven’t read the book yet, I think you’ll be able to understand it.

Prickly 

“You're prickly,” my husband said.

hard to get along with,

and snappish.”

I just stood there, surprised.

“I'm sorry for being prickly,”

was all I could think of to say.

I am never so blunt

when critical of him.

He would retort as he's done

so many times before,

“I guess I'm just not good enough.

You should just find someone else,”

he'd say. And, of course,

I would quickly shut up,

I wonder what prickly means.

Do I hurt to the touch

like little pin pricks?

Do cacti envy my prowess?

Do the cats that roam the streets

and sleep under cars hiss

and scatter when they see me coming?

Do the few stars

that burn through the haze

look down at me in wonder?

Post Prickly