Fifty-two Years and Counting

Today David and I will celebrate our 52nd wedding anniversary. Doesn’t seem possible that that many years have passed since we tied the knot.  I was just a young girl when I first met David and his brother at a basketball game where they threw paper Coke cups at his cousin and me during the game.  She and I hid in the restroom and every time we’d open the door, they would chuck a bunch of Coke cups at us. Sometime during the evening his cousin has told me I said, “I’m going to marry that boy.”  Now I don’t know which boy I was talking about at the time, but I ended up with David.

Fast forward a few years and I’m a junior in high school and David has moved in with his cousin’s family because his parents got jobs in the Virgin Islands and were moving there. David did not want to go.  The first time I saw him was when some of my girlfriends and I walked to the Dairy Queen during lunch and there was David, sitting all alone in his leather jacket, smoking a cigarette. Let’s just say my heart went BOOM.

At one of the first football games I saw him again. Now I don’t like football at all and only went to the games to be with my friends and flirt with the boys so I really wanted to flirt with David, but he spent most of the game talking to one of my friends, so I thought he wasn’t interested. But, the next Sunday his cousin called me and wanted to know if I wanted to go to a movie with her and David. SURE.  It was a setup, no two ways about it. It was a date, but not a date and yet, it ended so wonderfully. We saw the movie, Joy in the Morning, staring Richard Chamberlain and Yvette Mimieux. It was a love story and a wonderful movie. If you get the chance to see it, do.  Anyway, before I knew it, David was holding my hand.  Did I say he was a fast worker?   I was all tingly inside.  Then we drove around after the movie, went to the drive-in restaurant and drove around some more and David and I kissed. And kissed. And Kissed. I had always loved kissing, but David was the best kisser, ever. When his cousin dropped me off at home, my mother said, and I quote, “you look like you are in love.”  How did she know? Was it because she dated her high school  sweetheart, my daddy, and married him one day?  Yes, I was in love. That is how fast it happened. People say that’s impossible, but I’m here to tell you when you see the one you want, you just know.

So we dated the rest of the way through high school, David’s military training, my college year(My mother said I had to go to college at least one year before I could get married.)  I had the ring, just not the date. So I dutifully went to college which I really enjoyed, but I wanted to be married more.  So July 7th, 1968 David and I tied the knot.

My daddy said he could never give his girls away, so my big brother, Jack, got the honors.  I loved my big brother, He has since passed on to Heaven where I look forward to seeing him again.

David hid our car at the Stucky Pecan shop where I worked, thinking it would be left alone, but my friends at Stucky’s decorated the car and put bottle caps in the hubcaps which were really noisy when we drove away.

We were married by two pastors.  Reverend Stockinger, on the right had known me for years and had taught me and I became a Christian while he was pastor.  Reverend Taylor on the left, was our new pastor and I didn’t know him very well which is why I wanted Reverend Stockinger there also. It all worked out very well and we are double married and that’s been good all these years.

Did I say David was a good kisser!   Yes, he is.  This is when he still had brown hair and I was still skinny.

My daddy and mother, my sister all in pink because that was my color. I still love pink.  David’s brother, Bill, was his best man. He and his girlfriend got married a year later and just celebrated their 51st anniversary.  David’s mother flew up from the Virgin Islands.  It’s hard to believe our parents are all gone since this day just seems like yesterday.

I look like an angel in this picture, but I’m no angel!

I have always hated seeing brides stuff cake all over their groom’s face and vice versa. You can see I very carefully put a small piece of cake in David’s mouth. No squashing it for me.

It was a wonderful wedding and wonderful day, even when David’s brother, who was use to driving on the left side of the road(which is how they drive in the Virgin Islands) and took off out of town on the left side of the road until we yelled to get over.  We could have been a statistic instead of newlyweds. that day.

We honeymooned in Traverse City Michigan where David’s other grandparents lived and a lot of his relatives, too and I got to know them all and love them and we spent several Summers with them after our children were born.   We’d love to go back to Traverse City again, but not this year.  There is even a road named Craig road there because that’s all who lived on that road for years.  David’s grandparents had bought a farm on the peninsula many years before Traverse City became a tourist mecca.  I just read an article about the peninsula and the light house on the end of it. Been there, seen that. Many times.  Most of David’s relatives have moved or passed away and the ones who are left probably wouldn’t know us.

So on our honeymoon I felt free as a bird. No more curfews.  I was a grownup now. Little did I know that I would wish to be a young girl again with no worries in the years ahead.  But it’s been a wonderful 52 years for the most part. We’ve survived the downs and celebrated the ups and will continue to do so until death do us part which is several years away, I hope.

Happy Anniversary to us!  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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