Barb and I celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary on June 18. As we have done in recent years, we did so in a favorite getaway location of ours — a day trip on a beautiful early summer day. Galena is in the midst of deep, lushly green valleys of trees and decorative stone. Storybook stuff.

We started going together in the fall of 1966, at Muscatine Community College, when we were just about the only two of our high school crowd who didn’t go off to college anywhere but Muscatine, Iowa. We’d known each other in grade school and junior high – I’d had a crush on her in the fourth grade – and we played trumpet, side by side, in the junior high band. She was much better at trumpet than me, which may be why our friendship didn’t blossom into romance just then, as I hear males have fragile egos.

Our romance ran hot and heavy. We were one of those couples hanging all over each other in the community college halls that make everyone but themselves sick. We parked and made out and had a quite wonderful time – so wonderful that Barb’s mother tried to break us up by hauling her off to Arizona on false pretenses (a story in itself, which I will skip). Barb was out of my life for a few months, but she returned and we picked up where we left off and then some.

We married young, as Barb had a home situation I wanted to get her out of (and she wanted that, too – this has to do with the Arizona story I am skipping). So she was 19 and I’d just turned twenty. Our honeymoon in Chicago consisted of transplanted Broadway shows, movies in vast downtown palaces (all gone now) and incredible restaurants (many gone now), and a stay at the Bismarck Hotel (also gone now). It was a very Nathan Heller honeymoon, though Nate wasn’t born yet (neither the fictional character nor his namesake son of ours). Among other things, including some touristy stuff like the Museum of Science and Industry and the Art Institute, Barb patiently accompanied me on a search of used bookstores, seeking the two Richard Stark paperbacks I lacked.

The latter indicates not only Barb’s enduring patience with me and my quirks, but the extent to which we became, quite early on, inseparable. For people who really know us, we are Barb-and-Al. Did we have bumps in the road? One major one, about eight years in, but we both realized what we had – that it was special — and came to our senses.

We have made short stories, books and movies and one spectacular child together. But most all of we have been supportive and loving, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

The current joy of our life is our grandchildren, Sam and Lucy, so very smart and loving, both of them. And our son Nate – their father – and his wife Abby – their mother – live just up the street from us. How great is that?

But the love of my life remains Barbara Jane Mull, who became Barb Collins and my best friend. That she is an enduring beauty has not been at all bad, either.

M.A.C.