In his 100 trips around the sun, Darrell Ewing has seen a lot.

Born in Hunters, Washington, on April 25, 1922, on the reservation where his grandmother, a Native American, grew up. At the age of 2, Darrell and his family moved north to Bonners Ferry, where he spent the rest of his childhood and most of his adult life.

Living in Bonners Ferry was a dream come true for Darrell, where he and his friends had many a close call. From riding down the flumes at the old mill to nearly drowning while rescuing a friend who had fallen through the ice playing hockey, Darrell and his friends were always having a little too much fun for their parents’ liking and that daredevil streak didn’t end in childhood.

When Darrell turned 19, he enlisted in the Army during World War II, and was stationed in Antigua. He was assigned with the Army Corps of Engineers where became a heavy equipment operator, a skill that served a career spanning 40 years. While stationed in Antigua, Darrell’s daredevil streak was on full display as he was tasked to repair a broken pulley on a flag pole that was 70 feet high. The boom was too short and Darrell had to build a small platform so that he could climb on top of the pole and reattach the pulley — something he would have to do twice during his service there.

After returning to Bonners Ferry, Darrell put the skills he learned in the Army to good use and worked as a heavy machine operator for most of the major lumber companies in the area, the last 25 years with the Pack River Lumber Company until his retirement in 1965.

But that’s not all he did, Darrell began dating the girl next door, someone he didn’t know well until he returned home from the war. Alice and Darrell were married in 1946 and spent 64 wonderful years together, raising three sons: Paul, Kenneth, and Darrell Jr.

Alice and Darrell loved to dance and would travel all over the Inland Northwest attending dances as far north as Canada and as far east as Montana. Back in the old days, “there used to be 5 or 6 places (in Sandpoint) that you could go to dance,” Darrell said, noting that he and Alice tripped the light fantastic whenever possible.

After Alice passed away in 2010, Darrell continued to dance at the senior center, partnering with anyone interested in cutting a rug. At one of the dances, Darrell spotted a lovely woman standing in the lobby, and before she could even take her coat off, Darrell asked her to dance. Darrell and Sally spent most of the evening dancing together and when he asked her out to the next dance, he bought her a dozen long stemmed roses. That was 11 years ago and they’re still going strong. As Sally said, “what can a girl do?”

I think there is a metaphor here about dancing and life, love, and happiness. Perhaps it's that in order to be in a successful relationship, you have to be in sync with your partner. Someone who will waltz through life with you, enjoying the music and the physical connection, timing, and rhythm.

Love is a constant process of tuning in, connecting, missing and misreading cues, disconnecting, repairing, and finding deeper connection. It is a dance of meeting and parting and finding each other again. Minute to minute and day to day.