Living through the stories ..

He loved to laugh.  He loved to play.  He found humour in almost everything.  During our courtship, we spent many hours after work simply talking and laughing.  Come home, crack open a bottle of wine, few crackers and cheese, lots of chatter, and of course lots of smooching! 

I loved listening to his stories of growing up and the antics he and his friends were up to during their late teen years.  One of his favourite stories was of a time when the gang was out for a drive on a long dark stretch of a secondary highway.  A car too full of teenagers laughing;  Bill needed to attend to nature's call.  The car pulls over, the doors open, teenagers spill out and Bill walks off into the bush.  While his back is turned, the teens pile back into the car, close the doors and pull off leaving Bill to his business.  He hears the car pull away and yes, finds the humour in his friends' play.

Done with his contribution to watering the little tree, he makes his way back to the highway.  No car to be seen.  He starts walking towards town.  All you can make out is this tall 6'2" lanky shadowy figure with long hair made busy by the breeze.  Off in the distance, he hears the rumbling of a vehicle approaching.  Wishing to turn this joke back on his friends, he crouches down into the ravine and waits ... the rumbling nears ... he chuckles ... and just when he figures the car is right there, he jumps up, waving his arms in the air howling like a madman.  The headlights catches him in his full delirious glory.  Blinded for a brief moment, he continues to dance around; then in a quick flash, he sees the couple's horrified faces and hears the car shift into high gear to get the heck away from this madman!  He laughs and continues to walk towards town.  Another car, approaches and he does not want to be the cause of someone else's heart attack, he waits to see.  His friends; he climbs in and they laugh together.

There are so many of these stories of his youth that has me shake my head in wonder - how the heck did I get so lucky?  He survived so many hair brain schemes!