A Year of Celebration

We have been celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary. It has always been a joke when people ask us how long we have been together. We met in 3rd grade, although I did not much pay attention to Clem until 6th grade when he got a Mickey Mouse watch for Christmas - which I thought was really cool (and he kept looking at it in school).

We had our first date in 7th grade, the standard time to start dating in our hometown. By the time we graduated from high school, we knew we would marry - but waited until we graduated from college, in deference to our parents' wishes. After all, as the man, Clem needed to earn a living - and I needed a college degree, "just in case something happened to my husband." But it was clear I was not to use that degree otherwise. How much has changed in 50 years!

We actually married the end of August after summer jobs gave us some financial padding to start married life (another change - can you image summer jobs providing enough to start marriage life). We never had a honeymoon - rather packed up our meager belongings and headed east to Washington DC, where Clem was enrolled in graduate work. Going from our isolated rural community where access to news was limited to the news briefs at the movies - to becoming immersed in the international city of Washington in the sixties was like moving to another planet. And it changed us forever!

So we have decided to celebrate all year. First, we went on a 3 1/2 week voyage via cruise ship - from Kobe Japan all around the northern Pacific Rim's ring of fire to Vancouver, BC. It was wonderful - cold, challenging, and and filled with adventure. We encountered sea ice too thick to navigate at the south end of the Kuril Islands and had to return to Japan and chart a new course - all of which left us over 2 days behind schedule. We sailed above the Aleutians across the Bering Sea - something not in the original plan. And we revisited Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska for the 3rd time - one of the very special places on this earth.

The next celebratory event was an Open House here at our home, where 80+ of our dear friends and family gathered. It would have been a successful party (the rain held off until evening) even if we had slipped away and left our guests to meet each other and converse. We have accumulated a diverse group of people in our lives over the years - and count ourselves as rich beyond words for this community that came together and blessed us with their presence.

On Sunday, we renewed our vows at our parish. This time we knew what these vows really mean - to promise ourselves to each other for "better or worse." We certainly didn't have a clue when we married so long ago. Then we celebrated at dinner with our family at a favorite Indian restaurant. We re still basking in the glow of all this love.

And the celebrating will continue throughout the fall. We will report as events unfold. How fortunate we are to have found each other and to have all these years together!