Spending Time with People We Love

Fireworks bracketed our last day in Juneau.  We saw them at midnight, when the Fourth of July began, viewing them from the home of our hosts, on Douglas Island, high above the Gastenau Channel, and from the air we saw the annual Macy’s display on the East River a few minutes before we landed at ten that night.  Had there been fanfares along with the fireworks, it would have been entirely appropriate, for our two-week visit to Juneau was a spectacular success.

My wife and I tried to analyze the reasons for our enjoyment.   First of all, our hosts, the son and daughter-in-law of the couple celebrating their 60^th anniversary, were meticulous in their planning of the celebration, no mean feat considering that it took place over a two-week period for 21 people ranging in age from 14 to 82 in two successive venues, a rustic lodge on the mainland and a luxurious villa on the heights of Douglas Island. 

There was plenty to do: whale watching, where we saw several whales breaching, zip lining, a visit to a botanic garden, a visit to a nearby glacier, an all day sail down a fjord, where we saw the glacier at the head of the fjord calve several times, deep-sea fishing, and so forth.  And if we tired of these activities, we could simply gaze at the magnificent scenery right outside our windows.  And of course there was plenty of time for old-fashioned schmoozing, the best part of all, for it was the participants in the celebration as well as the couple, Ina and Allan Gartenberg, who were its object, that provided the greatest pleasure. 

It was a privilege to spend time with people who were so fond of each other.  The couple’s sons and their spouses clearly enjoyed being in each other’s company, and it’s no exaggeration to say that those friends of the couple who attended the celebration loved them – no surprise in view of the couple’s warmth, humor, and compassion for others. Those of their friends who attended the celebration have supported them in days of grief as well as joy and in the process have become attached to each other. They've become part of the Gartenbergs' extended family.

In a recent article in the Times, Tim Krieder wrote about the obsession of so many of us with being madly busy, with scarcely any free time.  “My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue,” he writes, “but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. “  His essay, which I read while flying back to New York, resonated with me, for we had just spent two weeks in the company of people we love.  Like Mr. Krieder, I can’t think of a better way to have spent my time, which for the young as well as for the old, is all the time that's left.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

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.