Happy Anniversary to the O'Neils!

Boreegard wrote this lovely poem to mark his 46th year of marriage to his lovely wife Jeanne. Happy Anniversary to the O'Neils and may they enjoy many, many more!!

Notes on the Eve of the 46th

We have reservations for the Mill on the River
For tomorrow night.
Our favorite local place to eat and drink,
Though it is not the Post Kutsche in Frankfurt am/main.

The Post Kutsche was a high tone
Restaurant on Rueter Weg,
Where on our first anniversary,
They treated us G.I.s rather shabbily.

That is, until I insisted on inspecting the cork.
My daddy’d taught me that essential claret test,
And after I squeezed it and smelled it,
The staff kowtowed and treated us properly.

This will be our 46th official year together,
Though in Deutschland we were together,
In her B.O.Q. and in the countryside,
Before we tied the official knot.

How delicious were those days,
Before the children came,
When she would listen to me sing,
And I would stroke her hair and more.

She, nursing the sick and weary,
And me guarding the perimeter,
With a loaded .45 model 1911A pistola,
And a Billy club painted black.

Slim and muscled we were,
And surrounded by friends,
Dragooned into the service,
By the process of the draft.

But in the end, happy for it all.
As memory slides away, and
One forgets the inevitable sad parts,
Happy for it all, after 46 years.


Boreegard—February 24, 2012