Jan. 31, '10: My Parents' 67th Anniversary

Today is a bit of a poignant day for me. Both my folks (pictured to the left, on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary) are gone, for almost a decade. Had they lived, today would have been my parents' 67th anniversary; they wed Jan 31, '43.

Dad immediately left for the Pacific, where he floated around on a sub-tender destroyer for most of the next two-and-a-half years. He was home on leave in July, '44, with Mother in Santa Fe, on or about the date of, and no more than 100 miles or so, as the wind blows, from, the Trinity test. I have come to refer to myself lately as among the first Atomic Zygotes.

Mother died Feb 5, 2000, Dad on Feb 16, 2001. Sometimes I miss 'em, especially when I have a really funny story to tell... Cigarettes killed 'em. Both were life-long cigarette smokers. Daddy bragged he'd started when he was 10. He was known in the school where he (and spookily, later, I, too) taught for never having been seen without a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other...He quit about the time he turned 70, and died just past his 82nd B'day. Mother started later and quit sooner, but it brought her down, too. She had a stroke, finallhy, but it was the smokes that killed her, at age 79.

Emphysema/chronic bronchitis = Congestive, obstructive pulmonary disease. I also suffer from it: shortness of breath, mainly, and spasmodic coughing--well, "suffer" is a bit strong now, but it will become much more pertinent as the next decade or so unfolds...