Forty Years of Wedded....bliss and blast

On October 15th Mac and I celebrated our Ruby Anniversary. For those of you who don't keep up with this sort of thing, that's forty years. In a world where people try on spouses like they try on shoes, I'd say we're in that comfy part of the shoe where the leather has gotten soft and warm and the support is still there if you make the walks a little shorter. The late Sheriff Kenny Welch always asked Mac, "so Mac, what is this now, twenty five years with this firecracker? When you getting your medal?" I told Mac I had dreamed that Kenny came over and had this great big Olympic type medal and was trying his best to hang it around his neck, but Mac kept pushing it away, telling him, " I don't get the medal yet...she says it's not time." He's right. It's not time. When we married in 1968 he was in Minelant and their slogan was "Iron Men on Wooden Ships". I always tease him telling him I fell in love with the slogan, then the man. Of course I did no such thing. On our first date I knew that he was the one. My breath caught in my throat as he approached me that night, dressed in Winter Dress Blues, that white cap pulled down and to the left over his eyebrow...and he swaggered. Now when we get dressed to go out, my breath still catches in my throat, because in my eyes, he hasn't changed. He's still the same man who warned me that he couldn't dance, then proceeded to dance the night away, never stepping on my feet one time.

So, forty years...and if I'd known then that he snored like a sailor, would never wash a dish (though he'd help clear the table), that changing diapers was not in his resume, and he hated to fly, but loved to drive (and let me drive rarely), that he wouldn't admit to being sick till his temperature hovered around 103, and that he would throw John Wayne at me whenever I criticised his inability to admit defeat (would John Wayne throw in the towel?"), what would I have done? I'd have married him anyway. He's a keeper. And still my one and only. We'll see about that medal on the 50th anniversary...by that time I think I'll have earned mine, too.