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The adventure
of a lifetime
Voltaire says: Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. I got that in the 'Quote of the Day' in my Personalized Google Homepage today. I say: Agree! And then if you do right by your spouse, you're not a coward anymore. Truth to tell, I wasn't a coward when I got married, but the first time I realized that I was a father, I got scared to death. I suggested to my wife to drop the baby. Just like that! She had the moral courage not to follow my advice, thank God. That baby now has her own baby, my first granddaughter. (In case you're interested, I had confessed that sin to a priest years ago.)

Courage, I now realize, must have something to do with the willingness to take responsibility for one's action, no matter what. Will you throw your wife to the angry waters or carry her across to safety? ('Waterfall' by Koleslaw, flickr.com/). That's all up to you. Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) was running scared all his life; he never got married - he had only the nerve to love and run. Marriage is a commitment; Voltaire was committed to his intellectual development but not to the institution of marriage. He was prolific, writing plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works and thousands of letters; he defied authorities, but he was not brave enough to sign his name on a piece of paper called the marriage certificate - and he was not courageous enough to honor the man whose wife he stole.