Remembering All the Years!
Listen to Anniversary
Anniversary
This tune is one of the few I cheerfully “borrowed.” I found the melody in a Fake Book labeled “The Anniversary Song” and did what pianists have always done — faked the rest. The steady undercurrent is an Alberti bass pattern, which sounds impressive but mostly means my left hand knows what to do while my right hand wanders around telling the story.
The timing is appropriate: my wife and I are nearing our 55th anniversary. When people ask how we managed that, I say I’m too lazy to start over. Sheri adds that she’s too economical to hire an attorney. Humor aside, we simply took our vows seriously — two young people with a tiny bank account, modest expectations, and no idea what we were doing. It worked out.
Marriage, like music, has movements. First comes the romantic overture, when you love the person you imagine. Then comes the long development section, when you learn who they actually are. Somewhere along the way, the things that once drove you slightly crazy become the very things you’d miss most if they disappeared — rather like a familiar squeak in the floorboards that proves you’re home.
After many decades, love feels less like fireworks and more like a quiet duet. Not flashy, not perfect, but deeply synchronized. What began as a simple pattern becomes second nature — two lives keeping time together, even when no one else is listening.
Happy Anniversary.
