Diaries of my mother’s and her mother’s, when they were both young girls.
Valentines from my maternal grandfather, James to my grandmother, Grace from before they were married.
Poetry my father wrote to my mother when they were dating.
Letters and poetry I have written to MiLady, when we were dating, when we were engaged and since we got married.
All of it saved and squirreled away “for safe-keeping,” they all say, but what they really intend to do with it is use it for blackmailing purposes — or total embarrassment, many years from now, when grandchildren and great-grandchildren dig them out and try reading them.
I say “try” because my male predecessors’ handwriting is horrid — it is worse than a drug prescription for your doctor. They will be safe because fifty percent of their stuff will not be legible.
Me, on the other hand? I wasn’t that smart, I printed … in block letters … between the lines … dated the top of the first page … even signed my FULL NAME at the end of every letter! [Stupid dummy.].
So, if my progeny can handle the really sappy-sweet junk from the earliest writings, morphing into the typical mushy stuff, that mutates into sexual innuendo that occurs randomly in almost any conversation or topic, they will discover just how bad it got over the years.
For example: trying to be romantic at age 50 — It isn’t easy, you know, to find a day when both you and your sweetheart are not ill or in pain (from arthritis, migraines, overwork, under-sleep, colds, the Flu, etc), but when you do, it is very, very special.
Not very long ago, I tried to be romantic.
Giggling, MiLady responded by writing a note upon a small, telephone message pad. She folded it in half, waved it at me, then with a devilish smile tucked it half inside her bodice.
[Well, if THAT wasn’t a challenge, I didn’t know what was!].
“Is that note meant for me?” I asked with a smirk, looking over my glasses at her.
“It is,” she smiled.
“Perhaps I should retrieve it then?” I inquired tentatively.
She giggled again. “Perhaps you should.”
So, with the confidence of the Great Irish Lovers of Yore, I leaned in and gently kissed her cheek, her jaw, then her neck, pausing briefly between each kiss to hear any reaction from her.
Then dropping slightly, three more kisses caressed her, each one a little lower than the previous, until …
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” I whimpered, turning away from her suddenly, like a wounded animal.
“What’s wrong?” she cried, sitting up startled.
“Paper cut!”
SLR