We finally saw a densely-dark, velvety black clear sky last night, sequinned with stars and a full moon. And when we awoke this morning the house was brightly illuminated, the sun warming the atmosphere inside and out, heralding, along with the paeon-pealing cardinal in the backyard, a beautiful summer day.

At this time of year, approaching June 5, we would normally not be at home, sleeping in our own bed. We've made it somewhat of a tradition to celebrate our wedding anniversary together with our puppies on a hiking holiday, travelling to the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, a huge natural area of mountains, forests, lakes and hiking trails we've been long familiar with.

For as long back as we can recall, our anniversary would be spent -- or at least the week surrounding it -- on various familiar and unfamiliar trails traipsing through forest landscapes. Much earlier yet, we would be there, in that landscape with our children when they were in their teens, and most of the trails we took back then were to access the summits of mountains in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, a superbly awesome natural area that offered us the kind of family adventure we all valued.

Well, it was not to be this year. This year broke the chain of our personal family tradition. With the threat of infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, closed borders, social distancing, and extreme care to avoid potentially hazardous locations, we've remained at home. There was no other option. Truth is, it hardly matters. We've so much to be grateful for, in celebrating our 65th wedding anniversary.

We have one another, and that speaks to the meaning of our lives. We live in comfort and security in the finest country of the world. And the quality of our lives at the present time can be viewed in the fact that we have ease of access to an urban forest located within a ravine which geological presence ensured that it would be maintained as a natural treasure, with no threat feasible for urban development.

So, as we do every day, we were out enjoying the fine weather, good health, companionship and pleasure with two little companion dogs, on forest trails this afternoon. And we'll do the same tomorrow, the day 65 years later that we married, on June 5, 1955, a beautiful spring day, in Toronto where we both then lived. We were young to marry by today's standards, at 18.

As teens we danced to songs that lamented "They tried to tell us we're too young, too young to really be in love"... And that was true, even then. They were wrong, we were right.