If being born male immediately put me on a course to mistreat women, I was quickly disabused of treading down that path by the time I reached the second grade. I will say that my instincts regarding the treatment of the opposite sex had gotten off to a most admirable start prior to that.

One of the sadder, personal implications of an expanding coronavirus pandemic would be the cancellation, or at least postponement, of our May travel plans.

The ocean provides the best backdrop for idle staring, because everyone does it. The private restaurant concession at the state park where Carol and I have stayed overnight several times provides lounge chairs and umbrellas for no other purpose than to sit and stare at the changeless blue or gray horizon, depending on the cloud cover.

Carol’s attempts to get me off the couch have taken some unexpected turns. The initial rollout of chores and errands demonstrated the impregnability of my Fortress of Decrepitude. Her occasional clarion calls of “the weeds are back,” or “the car could use a wash and wax,” or “we’re out of food,” were met with a level of unresponsiveness usually associated with talking to a wall.

One afternoon Carol spotted the little frying pan and spatula that I use for breakfast on the stove. “Did you fry something for lunch?” she asked.

The raw numbers suggest a story that doesn’t fit the reality. Carol was married in a civil ceremony on Gibraltar on May 14,1973. She reprised those vows in a Roman Catholic service in New York City on May 28, 1973. I married my first wife on August 23, 1974, and then married Carolyn in August of 2013. And then on February 13, 2020 Carol Madigan married Reid Champagne. For those of you among the anal retentive set (of which I am your president), that amounts to six ceremonies covering a total of five marriages.

I remember the first time Carol made me laugh out loud. Not giggle. Not chuckle. Laugh out loud. We were PMing at the time, and she was recalling a bus trip she’d been on in Mallorca. I replied that I saw busses in our future. She wrote back, “Of course you see busses in our future; you don’t have a car.”

When a potato sits too long in a pantry, it starts to grow sprouts. Fearing the same might happen to me on the couch, Carol prevailed upon me to make a road trip to Yorba Linda and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The Library was celebrating the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s first State of the Union address in 1970.

I would have thought that by now I’d learned how to dress myself. But Carol has shown me there’s still a lot of meat left on that bone. I’ll start with my feet.

Watching the recent Amazon Prime documentary Jacob reminded me of my own brush with a genuine polymath. I’m proud to have called him a friend as well.