Some background: Muriel and Irv had a party last night in a new art
space in the seedy area of Old Town: dancing to a band... wine, beer,
the whole bit. The cause of the celebration? Sixty years married.
Irv still runs five miles a day. Muriel has just retired, finally,
from practice as a psychotherapist and sex therapist. When they
"tawk," they drop aitches.
Three thoughts for Muriel and Irv
One
When considering how best to describe Muriel and Irv
you'll not be surprised to learn that I think
the natural way to begin is with a Scot
Robert Brown, born in Montrose in 1773
surgeon to the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencibles
a man who studied German grammar before breakfast
and then worked on botanical specimens until lunchtime.
Between one and three he saw patients,
and then, after as much as a pint of port,
he'd work some more.
We'll skip the tale of his trip on Joseph Banks' ship
and how he came to be a fellow of the Royal Society
and so we move to the fertilization of plants,
which was the object of his study
when he fixed upon a motion of particles
a motion that he wrote "rose neither from currents in the fluid, nor
from its gradual evaporation, but belonged to the particle itself."
Thinking about these two delightful people
Muriel and Irv
wouldn't you agree
that it all comes down to Mr. Brown eventually
because they're just not compressible kinds of people
they're a gas,
expansive
first class examples of that tendency, named after Robert Brown,
to want to explore the entire space around
Two
Irv is an adventurous and wily guy
who runs
to throw people off his track
Muriel, as you know, is a very retiring person
with a smile
about two miles wide.
Three
I would like today to finish with something huge.
Last week I found lying at the back of a military surplus store
a pristine bagful of unused h's
the good ones, the kind they made way back in the nineteen fifties,
all in mint condition and going cheap.
So now I'm in a position to offer them to Muriel and Irv,
to use however they choose,
while re-making the world as Humanistic Jews
with all their usual ardor.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
