How well I remember that time in September. I was in love, and everything was beautiful.
It was the time we remember as Camelot and the time of the off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks, with its wonderful songs, including "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and, most fittingly, "Try to Remember." It seemed a magical time.
Sixty-three years ago, on September 21, 1963, on a bright fall day on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, Beth and I were married. Four of our friends were there to share it with us.
Now, deep in the December of our married life, I think back upon the wonderful and often surprising journey it has been.
In our first years, Beth was teaching while I was still at the university. Then part of Camelot ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the country began to change.
Soon we were off to New York City, where I had a job with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and we lived on Manhattan's East Side between the East River and Central Park. From there we went to Carson City, Michigan, where Beth taught elementary school and I taught high school, and where we raised our two young sons.
Next we returned to Minnesota. Beth moved into educational administration, while I returned to high school teaching and eventually found my way back to the university to work on my doctorate. There followed a time of change and adjustment, as life took us where life is wont to do. We adjusted, weathered the changes, and continued together.
Later, we moved to California, where Beth became head of a private elementary school on the Peninsula. It was her last position before we retired and returned home to Minnesota.
Along the way, we lived through enormous changes in our country: the Vietnam War, Watergate and a president leaving office, 9/11, the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then Iran. We are now in another period of national upheaval that challenges much of what we thought we understood about our country.
But the history that matters most to me is our own: our shared memories, our steadily deepening connection, our two sons and the families they created, and the gift of three wonderful grandchildren.
It has been a journey through thick and thin, through sickness and health, through difficulties and recoveries-- and through the sheer joy of each other's company. There is no part of the journey that I would trade, because through it all, we were together.
And here we are, 63 years later, healthy, together, and still enjoying life.
The magical journey continues.
I love you Beth.
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