Michele and I were married in mid-August 1999, and honeymooned in the Pacific Northwest. My mentor Rosemary Sebastian, whom, to my great shame, I have lost touch with, pointed us towards a charming set of cabins about an hour up the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. To her great credit, Rosemary made sure that we were very, very aware that the gorgeous river-view came at a cost, but not a financial one. The cost was auditory: the amazing rustic, A-frame, split-log cabin was sandwiched between the water and the train tracks, less than one-hundred feet away. Their website now boldly announces “Whistle free as of March 2016”, but it sure wasn’t when we were there. Instead of mints on the pillows, they had earplugs. If you’ve seen the movie “My Cousin Vinnie”, then you’ve seen our honeymoon video. Having said that, we were warned, before, during and after we booked the place. I have always thought of it as one of a series of marvellous metaphors for marriage. You tell yourself what you’re getting, and you think you understand, but you don’t.

Our days in Stevenson, Washington (the north side of Columbia River is WA, the south is OR), coincided with the county fair. On a lovely cool night, we wandered the fairgrounds, and watched the crowds. My favorite part of any fair is always the 4-H barns, and the kids of Skamia County didn’t disappoint. I saw the biggest, fluffiest bunnies in my life! What really popped the top off the cute-o-meter that night was standing there with my wife watching two baby goats butt heads. They couldn’t have been much bigger than my cat, with round nubbins on their crowns. They stood, braced forehead to forehead, with their little legs trembling, whether out of fatigue or youth, I could never decide. If that’s not also a metaphor for my life with Michele, I don’t know what is. 

Michele has a fascination with boats and water that either makes no sense or perfect sense for a woman raised in landlocked San Antonio. On our travels, we have never met a body of water she didn’t want to kayak, canoe, row, be towed or peddle-boat upon, Since she took swimming lessons two years ago, we can now add, snorkel, swim, float, and, I assume someday, scuba. Our honeymoon cabin had a two-person kayak whose siren-song led us out on the water on a lovely evening. We paddled a while towards the setting sun. How well do you know Western State geography? Which way do the rivers flow? Ding-Ding-Ding! West, towards the sunset. When we turned around we discovered that the “first half” of the trip gave way to the “hard nine-tenths” of the trip back. We ground our way, inch by inch, back up the shoreline as the last of the day-glow turned into the first of the “Jaws in the deep end of the pool” darkness. We finished, sweaty, and frustrated, and taking it out on eachother. This story has no marriage metaphor at all. I swear.