You quickly realize how lucky you are, how heavily the odds are stacked against finding happiness

Oh, Robin.

We met as teenagers. She was the most beautiful girl at St. Mary's Hall in Faribault. I was a hellraiser there at Shattuck, the military school. I thought she was wonderful. She wouldn’t even talk to me! But we took note of one another, like placing a slip of paper in a book we expected to return to some day.

Twenty years later, returning to the campus for the first time in twenty years, I met the other new board member -- Robin. St. Mary's and Shattuck had merged, so the good girl and the bad boy were finally face to face.

Robin had put herself through college. She raised a family, two great sons. And when she came back up for air, she went back to school and got a second degree. Robin was a business magnate in her own right, running a group of ag companies, mainly in North Dakota.

Her dad founded a trucking line, that began as a dray team, hauling ice across the prairie. It grew into International Transport, a flotilla of flatbed trucks, hauling everything from steel pipe to MX missiles. She became a lady farmer, growing hard durum wheat for macaroni, and eventually, going into the pasta making business.

She was running several farms at once, but you'd never know it to look at her. She is as down to earth as anyone I ever knew. It's the signal I love about her. She is who she is. Me, I'm always trying to wow people, and I seldom do. But Robin is just wow, naturally. Put her in any world -- a boardroom, a grain elevator, a library, the opera -- she's still Robin.

What a life we have had together, always on the move. Like me, she's always open to the next adventure. One time I called from Florida after looking into a job, and said, Robin, we have to move. She didn’t think twice about it. She said, "We can do that." Then I told her we had to move that day. She was OK with that, too. Even though it was awfully -- sudden.

Robin loves history, especially the history of the south and especially things relating to slavery, because her ancestors were involved in it. On a trip to Europe once, we visited a Swiss town called La Neuveville, and we were ushered through the dank ruins of an old castle, until we entered a well-maintained room bursting with artifacts, photographs, flags, and coats of arms. And one of the grandest emblems was for the family Pelot, Robin's ancestors. As I suspected, she was of royal blood! The people of La Neuvevile wanted to get to know her, would have been delighted to welcome her home. But Robin put her foot down. "I'm not moving to no castle," was how she put it. We howled. 

You can imagine the fuss back in North Dakota when she informed the women of the family that they were in fact ladies and duchesses and more. You can imagine how the men felt about being coming home after work, suddenly, to prairie princesses.

That birthday, I gave her a tiara, which she sometime wears, along with sweatshirt and jeans. America!

The joke is that, tiara or no tiara, Robin doesn’t need to be a princess to be someone. She just is someone, being someone comes naturally to her, and people who meet her see that right away. She is open, and good, and she knows the meaning of laughter.

Which takes me back to my question: can we ever truly appreciate the things that make life possible? Is it possible to do such things justice?

Oh, Robin.

But aren’t we a couple. How we fell in love, her like a woman, understanding and graceful, and me like a load of potatoes on a bumpy road. I have never looked back. She is my lover, my teacher, the friend of my life.

People say, Danny, you look like you've flipped or something. And I say, you got that right, Charlie. And I never want to be right side up again.