“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

WHO KNOWS WHAT A DECADE WILL BRING?

(Written 12 August 1998. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 08 July 2009.)

It is not everyday that you turn seventy. No, no, I'm not turning seventy. But, the first Mrs. Schrader that I ever knew is. Today.

Of course, for the Schraders, such a landmark birthday can only be celebrated with a party. I don't know if it is a Catholic thing, a German thing, a Missouri thing or what--the Schraders like to have parties. And, quite frankly, I think it is great. Life is such a precious gift, we all need to let our hair down and celebrate it every once in a while, you know?

It is amazing to me what has transpired since the older Mrs. Schrader's last landmark birthday. We live a whole lot of life in a decade. Exactly ten years ago to the day I was vacationing in Canada. That remains the one and only time in my life that I have ever been outside the United States. It doesn't seem like ten years, however; in my memories, it seems like just yesterday.

Ten years ago my Aunt Elizabeth, the older Mrs. Schrader's twin, was still alive and well in Oakland County, Michigan, and will still feisty enough to argue with her twin about everything under the sun.

Ten years ago, almost to the day, I met the younger Mrs. Schrader. Of course, she wasn't Mrs. Schrader at the time, nor do I think she really thought she would be. Coincidentally enough, we met at a Schrader party, my brother's graduation party. She was a friend of a friend and I, of course, was his brother (so I had to be there--Mom made him invite me! "Stephen! Invite your brother!"), and from that magic moment, that magic spark, the rest is, as they say, history. A romance to live in the annals of time was born.

(What is even more weird is that my parents met at a Schrader party. Coincidence or conspiracy?)

In the past ten years, I have lived in five cities in four different states. I have owned three houses and lived in three different apartment complexes. Little did the younger Mrs. Schrader know when we met that I would be moving to Tennessee, we would be moving to Illinois, back to Missouri, and finally to Arkansas. Never in a million years did I envision that in ten years I would be writing a newspaper column for a newspaper in Beebe, Arkansas.

Speaking of writing, in the past ten years I have been an engineer, a writer, a teacher, a disk jockey, have run for political office, and even have made my own television show.

In the past ten years, I have become a father to three beautiful daughters and a son. (Here's another "history repeats itself" kind of thing--my parents had three daughters before having a son; the younger Mrs. Schrader and I had three daughters before having a son!) Amazingly, when I met the younger Mrs. Schrader I had resigned myself to a life of bachelorhood.

Over the past decade (Fooled you! You thought I was going to say "In the past ten years", didn't you?), I have lost one aunt, two uncles, and a grandmother. However, I have gained two nieces and two nephews. That's just on the Schrader side. Let's not forget about the younger Mrs. Schrader's brother's daughter, my niece by marriage.

In the past ten years, I have had surgery twice. Given that a decade ago I was terrified of surgery, and vowed never to have surgery unless I didn't know about it, to have two surgeries is doing pretty darned good. Of course, I can no longer lift heavy things, and there are days when my knee painfully reminds that it will never be the same, but who knew?

Will we meet again in ten years time to look back at the decade to be? I hope so, but given what can happen in ten years' time, I'm not quite ready to pen in my calendar just yet.

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