There was a historical period known as the High Middle Ages — a fitting term for the stage of life at which Abigail and I found one another.  I hoped we would have at least ten good years together before the hazards of life caught up with us.  As of January 20, it has been twenty-two years.  Recently, she reported – not just to me but to her acupuncturist and her favorite horse – that she was “happy.”  For her, it was an embarrassing confession.  Scholars and intellectuals NEVER say they are happy.  They are too smart and sophisticated for that.  And too deep.  Weighty thinkers are supposed to be full of existential dread and infinite angst.  She reports that, because her European mother was “happy” as a child, she was thought to be not too bright.  Charles de Gaulle was once asked by a reporter, “Are you happy?”  “Are you nuts?” the French leader responded.  (It sounded better in French.)  But my profound, brilliant, cosmopolitan wife reports herself as “happy.”  I was pleased for her, of course, but even more for what it seemed to say about me.  Although I am a rather lumpish husband, notorious for having been a poor date, who takes her nowhere and does nothing, and yet – thank God! – she is “happy.”  My Dad advised me way back when, “Make her happy and you’ll be happy.”  Thank you, Dad.