THE young man in the old photo looked familiar. He was in his late teens, appearing tall and somewhat thin in a formal white jacket and black pants. He was clean shaven with dark wavy hair. Looking back over 30 years of marriage
I was struck by the eyes of the young lady in white standing next to him - incredibly bright and inquisitive eyes with a hint of the devil in them. They were eyes wide open to all life offered. They were the eyes I fell in love with.
I looked across the room into those same eyes. They peered at me from behind granny glasses now and had a few lines around them, but they were the same eyes. They belong to my wife Maggie.
She and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary next week. It inspired her to organize the photos from our wedding album.
Maggie and I were married at the Hilo Elks Club where my parents, Al and Pearl Shapiro, had rented the upstairs bar. The Rev. John Beck, a Congregational minister, presided.
I had grown close to Rev. Beck during a tough time when I badly needed somebody to tell me my head was seriously stuck up my okole. He was happy to take on the job, even though we weren't of the same faith.
My first memory of Maggie was in high school when I accompanied Rev. Beck's youth fellowship group on an outing to his sister church in Keaau, where Maggie was a member. I was outside playing ping pong when I was supposed to be inside eating and Maggie came out to tell me so. When I didn't move it, she informed me that I had my head up my okole.
She began appearing often on my radar screen at Hilo High. When we ended up on the same debate team at Hilo College, I overcame my shyness and asked her out after a friend threatened that he would if I didn't.
Maggie's notes indicate that the wedding on Jan. 20, 1968, was supposed to start at 4:30 p.m. but didn't get under way until 4:40. The reason was that the Rev. John Beck wasn't about to marry anybody at a bar.
Supported by my Bubbie, he demanded entry to the secret Elks ceremonial meeting room. The Elks resisted, but they were overmatched. They turned over the keys.
Old photos warp time. Maggie and I were six years younger than our daughter Treena is now and only months older than our son Jared. My parents were younger than we are now. Maggie's mom, Veronica Ibera, was still in her 30s. Bubbie was younger than my mom is now.
Our friends were frozen in time as the youngsters we'll always remember. Jim and Jeanne. Thor and Karen. Kenny, Leon, Margo, Florence and Estra.
Maggie's dad Gorgonio Ibera, who was starting to go deaf from the clamor of the sugar mill where he worked, chatted with a haole woman in a cocktail dress. What could they possibly have talked about? Probably the same thing as everybody else: "They're much too young. This marriage will never last."
OUR wedding wasn't the only important thing that happened in 1968. My father survived a massive heart attack. Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Richard Nixon became president and Frank Fasi won his first term as mayor of Honolulu.
That fall, I went to work for the Star-Bulletin as a flunkie for Hilo correspondent Jack Bryan. It put me in the proper orbit to be served with a $70 million libel suit filed by Fasi 27 years later.
The marriage has lasted 30 years. It has taken us across the country and back again. I'd be a fool to say I wouldn't change a thing but, Maggie, I'd say "yes" again to your proposal without hesitation.