Starting on their 11th anniversary, and for many years thereafter (though not lately), my Dad used to write a poem for Mom on their anniversary, summarizing the events of the year past. We used to call him the Bard of Lexington, which we thought was extremely clever, since his name is actually Bard, believe it or not. The final lines of his original, 11th anniversary, effort, of which you will find an echo in the Chinese Checkers poem that we wrote for them on their 40th anniversary, became legendary in our family:
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John loves baseball, Jennifer loves ice, Jimmy loves all games, And Scotty's just nice. |
[I was a HUGE Red Sox fan in those days.] [Skating, that is, a fleeting interest of hers.] [Some things never change...]; [but others do! ;-]. |
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Bard loves TASC, With its carpeted floors, And Jane just flips Over six-panel doors! |
[Where he had just started working...] [he stayed there almost 30 years.] [They were house-hunting at the time...] [but this also presages Mom's career in Real Estate.] |
However, it should also be said that, as in most Nature-versus-Nurture questions, heredity and environment interact in complex ways. No doubt, besides my Dad's influence, my good friend Evan has been very influential as well: first, by exposing me, at an impressionable age, to the Limerick, and then later to the Higgledy-Piggledy.