Around this time of year, Sally and I have a four-week period of time, which we could call our Celebration Trifecta, as we remember our Wedding Day on March 22nd, Sally’s Birthday on April 2nd, and my trip Around the Sun Anniversary on April 23rd. While celebrating these special days, we don’t do the conventional gift giving, and we do the same for Christmas, as well. We use our Guardians Baseball Package, and whatever concerts, or stage shows that we may want to see pop-up, or if we just want to do a getaway weekend somewhere, and gift those to one another as our Birthday, Anniversary, Mother’s/Father’s Day, Christmas gifts to each other. Our gift to each other from this past Christmas was a Bucket List Cross-off of something we have wanted to do for a long time which a few weeks ago, we attached to a wonderful Christmas gift given to us this past Christmas.

In early March, after a lot of coaxing, reassuring, and mind easing (because there was some trepidation as to being sure we were brave enough to do it), we were gifted (Thanks, Chasity!) our very first cruise with some of our family, which departed from Miami and traveled to Jamaica, and the Bahamas, before re-docking back in Miami. As one of our favorite entertainers, Jimmy Buffett, once wrote and sang, “It’s been a Lovely Cruise,” and it certainly was that!

Being that close to where Jimmy Buffett started out, and where he set up one of his first studios, we decided to gift ourselves, for our Celebration Trifecta, a trip to Key West for a few days, so we booked a scenic, four hour, bus ride from Miami to KW, to spend three days seeing the historic and musically connected sights of the southernmost point in the continental United States.

Our side-trip’s itinerary included visiting the Hemingway House, and the possibility of seeing the Southern Cross, which, ironically, was a Crosby, Stills, Nash song covered by Jimmy Buffett and performed by him and the Coral Reefers, at many of the concerts we attended. We also wanted to visit places like Caroline St., and Captain Tony’s, both mentioned in songs that could have been written by Jimmy Buffett in his KW studio, visiting that studio site, and standing at the docked buoy marking the Southernmost Point in the Continental USA. From our extended cruise, we then flew from Key West to La Guardia Airport in NYC, and then onto Buffalo, before driving back to our Jamestown home base.

I’m not very good at wrapping presents (gift bags have become a very special invention for me), and my parts of these gifts aren’t really ones that required wrapping, and feeling bad that I don’t really give Sally much to unwrap, I still want to try and give her something. As many who read this column know, I am a huge fan of music. I love listening to music. I love doing Car Karaoke, or Car-aoke, as I like to call it.

I love watching many of the PBS replay concerts of artists like Peter, Paul, and Mary, John Denver, The Statler Brothers, and more. I’ve been gifted a book titled, “…And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’,” which lists the Top 50 songs and artists from 1955 to 1976. I was in the chorus for two All School Musicals back in ’70 and ’71, and we’ve attended many musical shows/concerts at Shea’s Theater, Key Bank Center (Buffalo, NY) the Erie Insurance Arena, Warner Theater, (Erie, PA), other Indoor and Outdoor music venues including Bridgestone Arena (Nashville, TN), The Temple Theater (Portland, TN), Riverbend Music Center (Cincinnati OH,) Progressive Field, Nautilus, Huntington Bank Stadium (Cleveland, OH), Pine Knob Music Theater (Clarkston, MI), Pavilion at Star Lake (Burgettstown, PA), Erie Station Dinner Theater (Erie, PA), Jefferson Theater (Charlottsville, VA), Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater (Virginia Beach VA), the Reg Lenna Civic Center, Little Theater of Jamestown, Chautauqua Institution, Jamestown Community College, JHS and other local schools. So, I guess you could say, I do love music.

So, as all this is said, and since there won’t be a tangible, hands on, tactile gift for Sally to open this year, I am gifting her the words to “Your Song,” composed and performed by Reginald Dwight (known better by his stage and performing name, Elton John), with words by Bernie Taupin, and the key sentiment in that song being, “My gift is my song, and this one’s for you.”

Sally, all that we do, and have done in these 47 years (46 as husband and wife), have been more special than they could ever have been because we have done them together. Thank you for taking on all these ventures and trips, to here, there, and everywhere with me, and for our trekking these latest adventures of the, hopefully, never ending (or at least not ending anytime soon) journey, we set sail on nearly half a century ago! I always emphasized to my kids, students, and athletes that, “It’s not the destination but the journey.” Thanks for being my most wonderful traveling companion!

Happy Birthday next Thursday, and another Happy Anniversary this past March 22nd. Please accept my gift to you, and thank you, Reginald Dwight for lending me “Your Song.”

For you, Sally…

Your Song

Lyricist: Bernie Taupin Composer: Elton John

Released October 26, 1970 first by DJM Records in the UK, partnering with UNI in the US, and later by MCA Records

“It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside

I’m not one of those who can easily hide

I don’t have much money but boy if I did

I’d buy a big house where we both could live.

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no

Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show

I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do

My gift is my song and this one’s for you.

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple but now that it’s done

I hope you don’t mind

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

Well a few of the verses well they’ve got me quite cross

But the sun’s been quite kind while I wrote this song

It’s for people like you that keep it turned on.

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do

You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue

Anyway the thing is what I really mean

Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen.

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple but now that it’s done

I hope you don’t mind

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world,

I hope you don’t mind

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”