Omen?

How shall I put this?  I’m not interested in judging or moralizing, least of all, disparaging  my own  personal history.  Like Uncle Buck once said, when I was much too young to appreciate his meaning—“I don’t regret my transgressions—I’ve enjoyed them too much!”  But among the descendants of Sofia and Eli born between 1900 through the 1950s, of those who married, I am aware of only five couples of partners, neither of whom has ever been divorced, and that includes only Buck and Sylvia Sampson Goodman,Shirley and Jack Adams (61 years!),  Jon and Barbara Sampson, Dean and Pat Sampson, and Marcia and Norm Landry.

Should the rest of us have known better? Aside from common sense, there were omens only in Sandy Sampson’s case. She had send notice, in typical architect’s blueprint form, that she intended to marry.  The rest of us were preoccupied, but Tina threw her new dress from Nordstrom into her suitcase, and flew to Anchorage for the ceremony.  When she dressed for the event, the elastic in the neckline of the new dress broke, and the front of her dress fell off.  She redressed in her only other outfit, her jeans and sweatshirt, and hurried off to the ceremony.

     As she followed Sandy and the soon-to-be-ex into the chambers where the judge would conduct the civil ceremony, she saw the sign over the door.  It said, “Coroner’s Inquest Room.”