Nostalgia on Valentine's Day (#84; Topic N)

Alumni of our university in Shanghai, now defunct, gather for lunch in a local restaurant once each quarter. One was held today. When the last time a luncheon fell on the Valentine's Day, about ten years ago, I asked attendees to talk about how he/she first met his/her spouse. Today, I asked them to do it again, since, over the decade, the composition of attendees had changed a great deal. Last time, the story that left the most impression on me was one stating that he first saw his future wife, then a total stranger, on the escalator -- he was on one going up; she on another going down. So fleeting, yet, as it turned out, so lasting. When I mentioned this to attendees at our table today (as chitchat), no one believed it; they accused me of making this up. As it happened, the person who told the story last time was in attendance today, and he repeated it -- thereby confirming that my mind had not deteriorated that much. This reminds of another story. Nine years ago, my wife and I booked a cruise to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Our travel agent arranged four couples, all of Chinese ancestry, and a daughter to one of the couples, all her clients, to have meals at the same table on board. On Thursday of our week-long cruise, when we had been together for 5 or so days, I asked those at our table to talk about how long they had been married and how they met -- I thought we would rank high as to the length of marriage. As it turned out, one couple was married for 54 years; another couple, 48 years -- my wife and I, with 40 years of marriage behind us, ranked a distant third. The fourth couple at our table was on their honeymoon. After these presentations were out of way, we rejoiced that marriages among people of Chinese ancestry last long, and congratulated ourselves of our long and happy married life.
Posted at 9:44 pm, Tuesday, February 14, 2006