38th year of a rare and fortuitous marriage

As of this very day, Mary and I have been married for 38 years. We've lived all over the country, traveled abroad for the pleasure of work, and have come to know so many people. It is a joy to be with her, increasingly, with each passing day. How wonderfully fortunate we are—as is tiny Lola, only the most recent of the amusing and curious creatures who have shared our daily lives. What is the secret? In part, it is because we see and think alike.

a car came down the street and ran into them

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Above Roy R. Behrens, Moon River Dog (© 2021). Digital montage.

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Frank Jacobs, The Mad World of William M. Gaines. NY: Bantam Books, 1973, p. 77—

In the fall of 1954, [William M.] Gaines [founder and publisher of MAD Magazine] and Nancy [a close friend and staff member] were turning into a gas station on West 96th Street in Manhattan. As they made their turn, a car came down the street and barreled into them. No one was hurt, and Gaines exchanged the usual insurance data with the driver of the other car, whose name was Gene Zahn. About a year later, two blocks from the gas station, Gaines pulled up to a newspaper stand. After buying his paper, he returned to his car, backed out a few feet, and was struck by a car rounding the corner. No one was hurt, and Gaines exchanged the usual insurance data with the driver of the other car, whose name was Gene Zahn.

“Didn't we have an accident a year ago?” Gaines asked.

“I believe we did,” answered Zahn, giving a polite nod to Nancy, whom he remembered from the previous run-in. “Say, don't you think it's time you two got married?”

Gaines thought if over and decided that the point was well-taken. Within a month, he and Nancy were married.

Block of Stamps | Amber Wessels

Synergistic Block of Stamps (2013) © Amber Wessels

Above Synergistic block of stamps on the theme of Art Deco Miami, by graphic design student Amber Wessels (2013) at the University of Northern Iowa.

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Rabbi David Aaron in Endless Light: The Ancient Path of the Kabbalah. Berkeley Trade, 1998—

One man who came to me for advice because he was contemplating a divorce told me mournfully why he thought the marriage went wrong. He said, "I know what my problem was. I was looking for a Ferrari and I got a Ford." I said, "I think the problem was you were looking for a car."

I've Got A Room in Chicago

Canadian Pacific Railway (1940s)

Anon: I've got a room in Chicago, and she's got a flat behind.

Francois Rabelais: Nature abhors a vacuum.

Tennessee Williams: A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

Charles Bragg: Nature abhors a vacuum cleaner salesman.

Anon: Hey. Pop! Vot is a vacuum?

—A vacuum is a void.

—I know it's a void, but vat does dat void mean?

Anon: Sorry about my dancing. I'm a little stiff from badminton.

—I don't care where you're from. You'll never dance with me again.

Henry Moore: [Before getting married] I had argued with all my friends that really artists shouldn't get married, they should be married to their art. After all Michelangelo wasn't married, Beethoven wasn't married and so on, all the examples of really good artists who weren't married; but after meeting Irina [his future wife], I began to say Rembrandt was married, Bach had twenty children and so on. All this attitude changed, and within six months we were married.