Our 35th wedding anniversary celebration was held on May 26th. Mary and I opened the program with remarks upon which this essay is based.
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Our relationship started in the fall of 1971. Mary and I had been abandoned by mutual friends and were left sitting side by side in a beer joint in Lawrence, Ks.

We were strangers to each other. I knew that Mary was actually on a date with her boyfriend at the time. So I was feeling a little like the odd person out.

We sat for a long time in silence. I was far too shy to strike up a casual conversation with someone I did not know. Mary was less shy, and finally, knowing that I was a doctoral student at the University of Kansas asked, with tongue in cheek, “Have you read any good books lately?”

I remembering being a little surprised at the comment but laughing and thinking that was a pretty good pick-up line. A lot better than anything I could have thought to say and that would have stuck in our memories for 35 years.

Mary knew by Christmas that I was planning to marry her, probably a couple of months sooner than I realized it. She often seems to know things about me before I do.

Mary said she knew when I called her long distance from Minnesota. We had a lengthy conversation. I think she already knew I was far too cheap to call long distance and run up the phone bill for any frivolous reason. And she clearly already knew I was not given to casual conversation, lengthy or otherwise.

Mary likes to remind me that I proposed to her by saying that I had decided we should get married, while chopping vegetables for dinner. So much for a romantic proposal but I did the best I could. It was easier to say, I guess, while chopping up a carrot, than over flowers and candlelight.

We have our wedding on a DVD converted from 8 mm film that is not of great quality but good enough for our guests at the celebration to notice that I was dressed in red polyester double knit pants. I am sure they still exist in a landfill site in Kansas. I doubt they are biodegradable and will be left to some future archeologist to ponder about the clothing habits of males in the 20th century.

The words from the ceremony were taken from a song by Karen Carpenter called “We have only just begun.” I was far to shy and nervous to speak. Mary agreed that we would have our attendants be the speakers, while I stood frozen in a casual, comfortable looking stance throughout the ceremony. I did manage to say, “I do”.

We were suddenly an instant family, a young bachelor, and a mother and two small boys, facing the challenges of learning how to be together. When in doubt, check the manual, except there was no manual. Anyway, Michael and David grew up to be fine adults and great parents and we are very proud of both of them.

In those early days of high romance, Mary and I thought of ourselves as Cinderella and Prince Charming riding off wonderfully into the sunset, which is west, but we turned north into Canada. We left a very hot sunny summer and arrived in Edmonton on a very cold and rainy day in mid August. Snow fell on September 10 that year. Clearly, we were not in Kansas anymore.

We thought a couple of years in Canada would be an interesting adventure. I suggested that perhaps we might buy a nice little house in Edmonton for $10,000. Little did I know. It was boom time in oil rich Alberta and the housing market was on fire.

We felt at home quickly in Edmonton. Probably because virtually everyone we knew was also from Kansas. We were part of an exodus resulting from a friend telling another friend, and so forth. It took awhile before we began making friends who were real Canadians.

Here we are, 35 years later. And there is not one of those original friends from Kansas in the room or any of the people who attended our wedding. The guests are among the many people we have gotten to know over the years, and we can almost chart our course by looking around the room.

Some of our dear friends were not able to make the celebration because life goes on. And we know that we were all thinking about each other on the day, and connected, even though apart.

We made collages from the many photographs of our family over the years. Our guests could also chart our course by looking at the photographs. We included pictures of us together and individually, as well as David and Michael and our beloved grandchildren Josie, Sullivan, Mathew, and Caitlin.

We have grown older and wiser in the 35 years. Somewhere along the line, as the Cinderella story goes, the clock struck twelve and we discovered we were just two pumpkins, named Mary and Gary, learning about how to be in a relationship.

It did not come easy. We have learned at lot. We have learned about ourselves, and about each other and discovered that we are both a lot more interesting than Prince Charming and Cinderella. No glass slippers in this relationship. However, we did go shopping together for good shoes to wear at the party.

A mentor of ours once said, “Any two people can start a relationship.” We have learned over 35 years about how a relationship grows and matures. It is like a flexible container that has to hold a lot without coming apart at the seams as the two people in it grow together and separately.

We were told recently by a reliable source that we are both “less uptight and conservative” than we used to be. Apparently we still have a way to go. So we continually feel like we have just begun so the words of the Karen Carpenter song continue to fit.

We have a couple of quotes we like that I wanted to include in the body of the essay below.

Here is one from Simone Sigoret.

“Chains do not hold a relationship together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads that sew people together through the years.”

There has definitely been lots of sewing in this relationship, literally and figuratively.

And here is one from me, yours truly.

“A relationship includes both “I” and “We”. If the focus in only on “I,” there is no relationship, only two individuals. If the focus in only on “We” then individuality is lost”.

So that is the process for us. Our code for those times when things get a little edgy is “I am on your side” and that brings us back to a primary value we both hold. We see each other as allies.

We gave this party for our family and friends in appreciation of them. It was a wonderful success and we stretched it out over the entire weekend, including a Friday night supper as well as an after celebration Saturday night party for many of our friends, especially those from out of town.

We were pleased to see so much mingling among our guests and to have opportunities to chat with everyone, at least for a few moments. We were touched by the contributions made in the program, including warm and witty tributes by our sons and a song by one of our granddaughters. Dear friends offered poetry, readings, personal comments and music, some written specifically for the celebration. The barren community hall was transformed by a group of worker bees into a creative and festive space complete with table centerpieces of flowers and herbs that are now planted in our backyard. They will continue to remind us of this wonderful event for the rest of the summer and we will nurture them as we do each other.