Fifty three and counting

Today was Janet and my fifty third wedding anniversary.  You’d think that after that many it would be just another anniversary, but it isn’t.  We both have cardiac and thoracic problems and a lot of physical problems that give us pain, and to be realistic, once you pass, or even reach fifty everything else in a bonus. 

I did reflect upon our beginning.  We were married on a Thursday morning of our Senior year in college.  I was selling shoes and driving a school bus; she was working in the college library repairing old books, and we were both taking a full load of classes.  Our honeymoon consisted of both of us taking Friday off. (It was easier to get time off from the shoe store than from the school bus, but I managed it.  I did have to go back  to the shoe store for Saturday sales. 

We had rented what I have heard called a shotgun apartment.  Living room in front, kitchen next and behind the kitchen a miniscule bedroom.

The living room was pale green and the kitchen was, if I remember correctly, purple.  Sitting in the living room and looking into the kitchen was a bilious experience, and one of our first tasks was to paint one of the rooms (the kitchen, I believe.)  We were in rehearsal for a play called RUR, for Rossoms Universal Robots.  It was the only time we ever played the male and female leads in a play.  We even had a love scene which I considered appropriate.  Like any new people who, no matter how well they know each other, we had to work out boundaries  and how our home would function.   One evening about a week after we were wed, I cam home from work to find Janet ironing a pair of my slacks..  It was clear that pressing men’s pants was a new process for  her so I offered to show her how men’s pants were pressed, down the length of the ironing board, to get an even crease.

Would anyone like to guess how many pairs of my pants she pressed in the ensuing fifty three years.   You guessed it!!!

We often laughed about being married on the thirteen day of the week, and have both been heard to refer to it as the year Friday the thirteenth came on Thursday.

Marriage is not always an easy process, but I am so blessed.  I know for a fact that I have always progressed to become a better person year by year because the angel I married has showed me how to do it.