{"id":283,"date":"2014-01-02T16:53:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T21:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/?p=283"},"modified":"2018-09-18T10:28:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T15:28:07","slug":"my-huckleberry-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":"My Huckleberry Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chris<\/a>

Chris and I on Kauai’s Kalalau Trail, 2007<\/p><\/div>\n

It is a new year but I still don\u2019t feel remotely ready to write about losing Chris, who passed away without warning less than four months ago. Yet something familiar that I heard over the holidays has compelled me to begin. It was the song \u201cMoon River\u201d from the 1961 movie \u201cBreakfast at Tiffany\u2019s,\u201d which went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song, making hits for Andy Williams and other crooners.<\/p>\n

Moon River, wider than a mile
\nI\u2019m crossing you in style some day
\nOh, dream maker, you heart breaker
\nWherever you\u2019re going, I\u2019m going your way<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Despite our lives together in various Manhattan apartments, Chris and I were little like Audrey Hepburn\u2019s Holly Golightly and George Peppard\u2019s Paul Varjak, just as the film was quite different from the Truman Capote novella that inspired it. We were married over 15 years ago in Savannah, Georgia, having met by sheer accident on the island of Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands on July Fourth more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

Both born in the late 1950s, we really didn\u2019t come of age until such innocently romantic songs were already considered pass\u00e9. Still, \u201cMoon River,\u201d whose lyrics were penned by that native son of Savannah Johnny Mercer, always seemed right for us. It captured the essence of our relationship, and became our song.
\n
\nTwo drifters, off to see the world
\nThere\u2019s such a lot of world to see
\nWe\u2019re after that same rainbow\u2019s end, waiting, round the bend
\nMy Huckleberry Friend, Moon River, and me
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

For a quarter of a century Chris and I lived an adventure, sort of like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. My \u201cHuckleberry Friend\u201d is gone now, and I feel lost myself, but I will always cherish her in my memories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a new year but I still don\u2019t feel remotely ready to write about losing Chris, who passed away without warning less than four months ago. Yet something familiar that I heard over the holidays has compelled me to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyvineberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}