It’s throw back Thursday, and time to share an oldie but a goodie.  Paul was shuffling through some old photographs a couple weeks ago and found this gem.  When he owned his ad agency, we’d have an annual Halloween party.  This picture captures what Paul and I have personified all these years.  We compliment each other, don’t you think?

When I first met this man more than sixty years ago, I was immediately drawn to him.  We became great friends all the way through our high school years together.  God designed us for each other.  Things have not always been perfect.  Like most couples we’ve had our ups and downs, but we muddle through and don’t give up on each other.

Paul is an outdoorsman.  He loves nature and all it has to offer.  I prefer staying inside, mainly because of allergies and the inability to breathe when I’m walking through fields of golden grain or whatever.  Paul is a great story teller. Whatever the subject, he seems to know something about it and can embellish, expound and explain in ways that I can’t.  He’s a clown at times and so am I.  He’s an amazing artist and I write so we can call on our talents from time to time to collaborate. All of this makes for an interesting and hilarious relationship.

When he worked at a nature center after his retirement, many of the kids thought he was Indiana Jones, because of the hat he wore and the fact that  he had eyes in the back of his head.  He could tell them what plants you could use for toilet paper if necessary, how to forage for food, how to survive in the wild and track animals. (Those skills could come in handy today as we look for alternative resources.) As they hiked through the woods, the kids would hum the Indiana Jones theme song. One precocious child once asked him if he was a paleontologist.  The kid was only six, but he knew what a paleontologist was.  Paul replied that he wasn’t, but he was a dinosaur.

We continue to have fun together.  We laugh at each other’s jokes.  We create jokes to make each other laugh.  Life is always pretty funny at our house. The dapper young man in the photo has turned grey.  His beard is no longer black, but he still has one.  His eyes twinkle even though he suffers from macular degeneration. He continues to love the outdoors, but he takes a little longer to move through it.  I, on the other hand, haven’t changed a bit.  I still resemble the image in the photograph.