“Lordy me, that picture takes me back.  It was at the Rotary Club picnic, and there was this boy — and I swear he must have followed us the whole afternoon, working up his nerve.  Finally he comes up to me — and of course he was much thinner then, dont’cha know, and he still had all his fur — and he just stands there, staring.

“Well, after a few minutes of this, I give up and turn to get some more tuna casserole, and he just up and bites me on the tail!  Right in front of everybody!  And well, of course I’m just madder than I-don’t-know-what-all, and I’m about to haul off and slug him, when I get a look into his eyes.  And it was like they were pleading with me: Don’t go.

“And I figured, if a feller wants a girl bad enough to bite her on the tail, he must want her awful bad.  That was forty-seven years ago, and we been together ever since.  Missed the fireworks and everything.

“Well, not entirely.”

Thanks for the memories, Dia H.