Tag Archives: Niagara Falls

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Anniversaries past …

I am going to be marking a significant date in my life without the presence — for the first time in 51 years — of the individual who made that date so important to me.

Kathy Anne is gone but I want to remember on this blog the way we celebrated our wedding anniversary. We didn’t do this throughout our entire married life together, but we did manage to squeeze in some memorable jaunts away from the hustle and bustle of daily life to just enjoy each other’s company.

We married on Sept. 4, 1971. That’s 52 years ago. Cancer took her from us in February and I have been telling you the story of this journey I have undertaken in search of a new life that I haven’t yet identified.

Well into our blissful life we made a pact that we would plan a brief trip away from “the house” to somewhere fun to celebrate the ceremony where our life together took root.

One of them occurred on our 30th anniversary, Sept. 4, 2001. We had moved from Beaumont to Amarillo a few years earlier. We decided to go to Branson, Mo., to take in some entertainment and enjoy the rides at Silver Dollar City. We booked a hotel room, and while doing so we told the reservation clerk we were celebrating year No. 30 together.

When we arrived, we saw the hotel marquee with the message: Happy 30th anniversary, John and Kathy Kanelis.

How cool is that?

Little did we know that precisely one week later, everyone’s life would change. We awoke the morning of 9/11 and then all hell broke loose when the jetliners crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Ten years later, we flew to Buffalo, N.Y., to take in Niagara Falls. Wedding anniversary No. 40 was equally memorable. For one thing, the plane we rode from Chicago to Buffalo contained one passenger of note: the actor Dennis Quaid. We got acquainted with Quaid while waiting for our luggage. He’s a nice guy.

We hiked to the base of the U.S. falls and then rode aboard the Maid of the Mist into the deafening roar of the horseshoe falls on the Canadian side of the attraction.

We spent many vacation jaunts like those during our life together. They make me smile, even as I prepare for what I expect will be a day that will tax my emotional strength to the core.

President Biden has told us that tears will be replaced by a smile when we think of those we mourn. He’s right. I am able to smile now. It feels damn good.

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About those walls …

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As long as we’re talking about building walls to keep illegal immigrants from streaming into our country, let us ponder some things.

My wife wondered recently about the proposed Trump Wall along our southern border. “What does Donald Trump propose to do about those who would tunnel under the wall?” she asked.

Good question, Girl of My Dreams.

What does Trump propose for the wall and how deeply does he want to sink it into the dirt along our 1,900-mile-long border with Mexico? Ten feet, 20 feet, 30 feet … 100 feet!

Has he heard about how the infamous drug kingpin El Chapo dug his way out of that maximum-security prison in Mexico?

OK, so Trump has been joined in the Build-a-Wall chorus by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who said over the weekend it’s worth considering a wall between the United States and Canada.

That one would be roughly double the length of the Trump Wall.

Remember that we have a significant border with the Canadians along our Alaska state line.

So, not only would a U.S.-Canada wall stretch 3,000-plus miles along our countries’ east-west border, it would go another 1,200 or so miles north and south from the southern tip of the finger of Alaska that deeps south to, um, the Arctic Ocean — wa-a-a-ay up yonder.

And while we’re on the subject of the northern border, Gov. Walker, what are you going to do about some shared attractions?

Niagara Falls — which my wife and I visited in 2011 — comes to mind immediately.

This wall-building rhetoric is easy to throw out there. It gets applause and cheers from the Republican Party faithful.

However, this nonsense requires some serious thought … which we have not yet heard from any of the people who want to be president of the United States.