“Take my hand along the sand and together we will try and catch the wind”…Donovan

 Today is our fortieth wedding anniversary

This is a photo of my wife, Debi, and me forty two years ago watching the sunset on the bluff along Carlsbad Blvd.,  long before the walkway or even stairs to the beach. We lived in a garage on Garfield Street and would walk down and watch the sunset every day. Some of the best days of our lives; perhaps more correctly stated some of the simplest days of our lives. The photo appeared on the front page of the Carlsbad Journal, the local paper at the time, under the headline Things You See at the Beach. I talked the photographer into giving me a copy and on it I wrote the above lyric. I put it in a frame I purchased at Good Will (money was tight) and gave it to Debi for Valentine’s day.

The beginnings Oct. 5, 1974

Debi and I have walked the sands of the beach in Carlsbad for over forty years holding hands, sharing our dreams, facing life’s challenges and trying to catch the wind. Forty years ago we dreamed of moving to Mammoth Mountain, skiing, working in a ski shop drilling skis not drilling teeth as a dentist in Carlsbad. We may not have caught the wind but we have certainly found our dreams here in Carlsbad. We live in a community  we love, we have two wonderful, adult, happy children and a life filled with friends and joy. We look forward to the future together.

Many of you would probably be surprised to learn that I am a hopeless romantic, I watch Lifetime TV and sappy movies. Recently I took the photo out of the frame to make a copy and on the back in faded ink I found an additional inscription that I had long forgotten:  “ Debi I am in love with you and there is no other way I would want to be.” I feel the same today, some forty years later, and forever will.