TODAY’S CELEBRATION
On a hot, hot day on the 17th of the July, 1972, John and I embarked on a long and lovely marriage. With weddings costing tens of thousands of dollars these days, it seems that the hoopla surrounding the wedding is much greater than the hoopla of a successful marriage. Definitely not so in our case.
Did anyone other than John and I expect our marriage to last? I think not. Since we came from two totally different religious backgrounds, Catholic and Jewish, just the idea of such a match was still a very touchy matter back in the 70’s. I’d get into what I think of religion and its do’s and don’t’s here, but this is a celebration piece. Well, finding a place to hold the wedding was never going to please everyone so we decided to please ourselves and found a Justice of the Peace in the Yellow Pages. I told my mother the night before our ceremony that we were getting married and my mom, dad and sister boarded a plane the next morning for Boston to be there. I’ve got to give it to my mom on this, she had never flown before and was scared stiff. When we found out late Sunday night that they were coming we pushed back the wedding time from 10AM to noon on Monday. They took the Eastern shuttle out of Newark at 8:30 AM and we picked them up at Logan airport around 9:30. Since no celebration in my family can be held without drinks, we then had to find a liquor store and had whiskey sours before we left to see the JP.
The five of us piled into my un-airconditioned Pontiac Tempest and drove an hour in 90 degree weather to the JP’s house. We were all in a good mood by the time we got there. Arthur Collins, our phonebook official, was a nice man whose wife was the witness. John, with his long hair and in his interview suit, and I in my dotted Swiss navy dress with really long hair , looked the perfect hippie 70’s couple. The ceremony took 5 minutes, we stopped at Anthony’s Pier 4 for lunch, took my parents and sister back to the airport to catch the 2:30 PM flight back to Newark and it was done. Not much hoopla, as I said.
So what’s made it last? Maybe knowing that neither of us are perfect and accepting each other’s foibles. Certainly, laughing at the dumb jokes we make. Knowing that each other is the best thing that has ever happened to either of us, for sure. We’ve come through these 33 years ignoring the statistics, celebrating everything, discussing everything, and raising two great kids who have the same or a better outlook on what’s important in life. We saved our hoopla for every day.