Looking Back at A Week of Anniversaries

This has been an eventful week throughout history. Lots of anniversaries to mark. Some are better than other.

April 17 marked the successful return to Earth of Apollo 13 after the in-flight explosion.

April 19 was the anniversary of the fiery end of the Waco Siege, and the Oklahoma City Bombing. I was in the police academy when the former happened, and one of our fellow students got called up as a National Guardsman to assist at the scene. I was in school and at work for the latter, and I remember being mocked at the time for suggesting that it might not have been Middle Eastern terrorists. What’s kind of interesting to me now is that by the time I was having that conversation, the bomber was already in custody. We just didn’t know it then, because we didn’t have the constant instant updates from internet news.

April 19th was also the anniversary of the Turret Two explosion aboard the USS Iowa, which killed 47 sailors.

April 20? Columbine. It also marked the lunar landing of Apollo 16 (on Houston time).

April 22, 2021, I received my insulin pump, which has been an absolute life-changer.

I guess the biggest thing—in my life, anyway—was April 21, 2017. Six years ago, Diana and I were announcing the end of our marriage. We thought after 18 months of counseling that we’d done all we could, that it wasn’t getting any better, and that it wouldn’t get any better. So we made a public announcement and started the preliminary stuff.

That meant deciding where I was going to live, and what furniture I’d take with me when I left. That was both easy and painful because so much of the furniture we had at the time came from my parents. Sure, it was mine to take, but it would have been a big chunk of what Diana and the kids needed. I was willing to leave some but she said to take what was mine.

Finding a place to live wasn’t all that difficult. We had a rental house that was empty at the time, so I took that as a payment from the partnership and set about fixing it up.

But a funny thing happened along the way.

Before we ever got around to getting an attorney and filing anything, we started talking more. But we weren’t just talking. We were listening. We were having an actual conversation.

I like to say we’re still reconciling, even six years later, because I don’t know that that process is ever truly completed. I think once you say it is, you risk falling back into the same issues that caused problems in the first place, and I really don’t want that.

Anyway.

We had a bit of a blow Wednesday night that cost us a big limb from one of our maple trees. My weather station didn’t show anything over 15 mph though, so I’m not sure what caused it. On the other hand, this particular section of the trunk lost a limb several years before we bought the place, and I don’t think the damage was properly repaired. I’ll get on that this coming week.

Fired the grill up Saturday night for steaks. All of the local kids made it out, which is always nice. I didn’t do a terrible job, in that no one got sick, and everyone liked the flavor. I managed to overcook my own steak, though, and keeping track of how to cook everyone’s—we had ten people—was a little taxing. Back when I was in food service, we had the cool little plastic markers for steaks and burgers, and I think I’m going to start checking Amazon for something similar. But it was fun to be cooking on the grill.

I’m planning on smoking…something…next month, probably a chicken. A couple of my boys are trying to convince me to do a turducken for Thanksgiving. I’ve wanted to have one for years, and I’ve wanted to smoke a turkey for years, too. Maybe I’ll do the turkey this year and the turducken next year. We’ll see.

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