I cannot speak for others about this topic, but for me, one of my life’s tragedies has been that when I became curious enough to ask a question the person who could have answered it was dead.

I remember to this day the first time I ever saw Rosemary. It was from the back. She was walking out of the school where we were both working in (I did not know this) in Mexico. On the street I saw a woman with straight and long blonde hair. She was wearing a dark blue miniskirt and she had legs that were astounding.

I have no idea how I approached her and how I felt when I first saw that lovely face of hers. I have no memory of what I said to her. We were married a month and a half later.

Perhaps I was always destined to fall for a blonde. In 1958, homesick for my mother in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, while in my boarding school in Austin, Texas, my mother came for a visit. She suggested we go to a movie on Congress Avenue at the Varsity. It was Raintree County with Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint and Montgomery Clift. My eyes were only for Saint and I had no interest in Elizabeth Taylor’s purported violet eyes.

While in Buenos Aires around 1966 I had a blonde girlfriend called Corina Poore. She was a fine guitar player with a lovely singing voice. She introduced me to the music of Bob Dylan (I was an ignoramus) and of Peter, Paul and Mary. She contacted me in 1968 to tell me she had found a job in the Mexican Olympics. I turned her off by telling her I was married to Rosemary.

My interest for for folk music I retained especially in appreciating when Joan Baez sings in Spanish. I have a special place in my heart for Peter, Paul and Mary. Somehow Mary reminds me of Rosemary even though Rosemary never wore bangs.

The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face - Peter, Paul & Mary

I now only wish I had asked Rosemary, “What did I first tell you when I must have touched you on the shoulder on the street?”

When I went to Buenos Aires at Christmas 2021 to avoid being in Vancouver for a Christmas without Rosemary, I remember being in the lobby of the Hotel Claridge. I was sitting on a wing chair reading the love poems of Alfonsina Storni while staring at the elevator door imagining that it would open and Rosemary would be there. It was then that I realized that I was falling in love with Rosemary all over again.

So many of my blogs since she died on December 9, 2020 are about her. I have come to the conclusion that I am wooing her all over again.