Allan and Ina

When I looked out our window on Friday morning, I saw steep, snow-capped, fir-clad hills, from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high, which ran down to the street below.  No, I wasn’t dreaming.  I was in Juneau, Alaska.   We had come for a double celebration, the birthday of our dear friend Ina Gartenberg and the 60^th wedding anniversary of Ina and her husband Allan.

Allan and Ina don’t live in Juneau.  They live in Culver City, California, but in December of 2010, at their son’s wedding in San Diego, Ina announced that she wanted to hold these celebrations in Juneau, because her son and his bride were moving there.  And what a celebration has been planned!  Among the activities are whale watching, deep-sea fishing, zip lining over a forest, kayaking, and a visit to a salmon cannery.  It’s as close as we’ll ever come to attending an affair as elaborate as the Queen’s diamond jubilee.

But the main attraction, of course, is not these activities or even the gorgeous scenery in which Juneau is set but Allan and Ina themselves.  For they display a zest for life, a sense of humor, and a warmth and concern for their friends that is both endearing and inspiring, a model that few of us can match but all can try to emulate.

It is an honor and privilege to have been invited and we would have gone to Timbuktu had that been the venue.  But thoughtful as always, the Gartenbergs have chosen a setting incomparably beautiful, where every prospect pleases and not even man is vile as long as Allan and Ina are around.