Diamond Anniversary: Romance & Reality

Today, my parents celebrate their diamond anniversary (that's 60 years, folks). That is a very long time. They have been married through eleven presidents, seven popes, and far more important to them: two kids, five grandkids and nineteen homes.

They are very much of The Greatest Generation. They were born & raised in Minnesota and grew up during the Depression. Dad joined the Marines in September of 1941, finishing Boot Camp in time for Pearl Harbor. He spent most of the war in California and North Carolina ~ the year-and-a-half in Samoa he downplays. He wanted to be a fighter pilot, instead he maintained runways. He says he's not really war vet because he never saw combat. I disagree, he was in easy roundtrip distance of the Japanese base in Kiribati and it is a reasonable assumption that American pilots (and their postwar progeny) consider him a vet and appreciate his service. Mom spent the war in a small farm town and probably suffered as much privation as Dad. She didn't have to worry about being bombed, but she had no luxuries like indoor plumbing.

Ruth & Frank's wedding day.

Mom graduated on D-Day and promptly moved to Minneapolis. Dad was discharged and went to LA to drive streetcars. A few years later, Dad moved back to Minneapolis and attended the University of Minnesota. About the same time, Mom moved to San Francisco. Towards the end of the Korean War, Dad joined the Navy. Home on leave, he met a girl at a party who suggested he look her up if was ever in Frisco. Then the Navy sent him around the world.

Come spring, his ship returned to the US and stopped for a week in San Francisco. Finally, they were in the same city at the same time. Frank called the girl, who had started dating someone in the meantime. The girl convinced her roommate to show the sailor around town. At last, Frank met Ruth. They began dating. Ruth moved back to Minneapolis and the Navy sent Frank to DC. Romance progressed quickly, they met in late spring and by September, Frank called Ruth to propose. They married in December and headed to Washington and their first home together.

In time, they lived in Virginia, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois & Minnesota. They drove up and down the Eastern Seaboard more times than they could count. Their first child was born while Dad was thousands of miles away. Mom battled cancer. Dad finished his stint in the Navy and enlisted in the Coast Guard. Suddenly, they were living together more than they were apart. Dad kept getting transferred; Mom kept packing & unpacking the household. But now, for the first time, they could be together for extended periods.

In Hawaii, after their twentieth anniversary.

They moved. And moved. Adopted a child. Bought a house. Got transferred. Moved again. Then Dad retired from the Coast Guard and they moved to Minnesota. And never moved again. (Kidding ~ eight homes after the military.) They bought a house and settled down. They got jobs and raised their kids. They joined the American Legion and the VFW. They studied ballroom dancing. We travelled on vacations. None of my friends did that. But the peripatetic years had left their mark, my parents wouldn't settle for the same four walls day after day.

In Canada, about twenty years ago.

They've never stood still. In their fifties, they joined a hiking club, an RV club and ~ to the extreme horror of their adolescent daughter ~ took up square dancing. They took vacations without the kids (also something no one else did in the early eighties). For over twenty years they wintered in Arizona.  And they kept traveling. A year-and-a-half ago, we went to South Carolina for my uncle's birthday. This past summer, it was the South Dakota border for a 70th high school reunion. They don't travel alone anymore, but they still get out and do things.

Between them, there have been four cancers, a pacemaker, a permanent catheter and several other medical delights. The morning Mom got her pacemaker, Dad poured her a cup of coffee before remembering she was in the hospital. Mom gets him to all his doctor's appointments. Every time he is hospitalized with another infection, she worries that this is the last time.

Some days, they just plug along ~ others, they revel in. This year, Dad saved his Bingo winnings so Mom wouldn't know he was buying anything and had me pick up a bracelet for her birthday. He's 93 and still sweet on her. She's 88 and still happy to be his wife.

They've cleaned dirty diapers & dog poo. They've danced & seen the country. They go to church together every week. They still like to go out to dinner together. They (usually) have tremendous patience with each other and the curve balls life throws. They don't dance anymore, but they still enjoy music. They are adorable together. They have fun and laugh with each other, sometimes at each other. Through them, I've learned the importance of taking marriage seriously, but not taking myself too seriously.

Last year, at brunch. My flash was too slow, I missed the kiss.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

Happy 91st Birthday!

Chief Petty Officer Yaeger in his brand new uniform.

It is my father's ninety-first birthday. About a month ago he decided it might be time to give up bike-riding, Seriously. A couple of weeks before his ninetieth birthday, he was hospitalized with sepsis. Lots of people were planning to come to his birthday party ~ and we had every reason to worry they'd instead be coming for his funeral. But Dad is tough. He is an ex-marine after all. And that is part of what makes him fascinating. A year-and-a-half ago, eating in a restaurant with Dad, I learned he liked pickled beets. Hmm, mildly surprising. A year ago, he announced he "might not dislike onions after all." Uh-huh. Maybe the Mayans were off by a year? Dad doesn't dislike onions, he hates them with a fiery passion. In their nearly 57 years of marriage, Mom has never been allowed to put a chunk of onions in anything. She can grate in a teaspoon of onion juice, if he doesn't see it (kind of "don't ask, don't tell" onion policy). Within weeks of turning 90, he changed his mind.

Told you they square-danced ~ now it seems cute.

That openness to new things may have something to do with why he's still going strong. He took up skiing in his fifties. Downhill skiing. He bowled & biked until this year. He comes from a generation that expected to slow down at fifty. Dad was just getting started. In the past forty years, in addition to skiing, and going to casinos (he is old, after all) he took ballroom dance lessons with Mom. They took up square-dancing, much to my horror ~ no teenager wants her parents doing that in public. They joined a hiking club. They joined an RV club. They moved into a two-story house that had Dad on a twenty-five foot ladder cleaning out the gutters until he was 86. Mom finally decided they had to move into an apartment because it was the only way to keep him off that damn ladder.

He always been a go-getter. In the summer of 1941, he decided to join the Coast Guard, but he couldn't find the Coast Guard recruiting office, so he joined the Marines. He finished boot camp just in time for Pearl Harbor. He never saw combat, so he insists he's not a hero. It's not that he tried to avoid it, in fact, he tried to be a pilot. But the Marines put him to work maintaining the runways on the base in Samoa. He left the service after The War. Tried civilian life for eight years and went, again, in search of the Coast guard recruiting office. Found the Navy that time. The Navy put him in charge of big guns. And they sent him around the world. Before he left, he met a girl at party back home in Minneapolis. She told him to look her up if ever got to San Francisco. Months later, he got to Frisco, and she had a boyfriend. She convinced her roommate, Ruth, to go out with him. Dad was so nervous (33, ex-Marine, literal world-traveller) that he showed up with friends. He must have said something right, eight months later she married him. At the end of his Naval enlistment, Dad finally found the Coast Guard office. He loved the Coast Guard, stayed there until he had enough years in to retire. He got so good at what he did that the Coast Guard had him teach at the Academy for two years. After retiring from the military, he drove bus around Minneapolis for sixteen years. Then he learned to play.

Dad ~ on his 90th birthday. The W279 is the Eastwind,
the ship that had him spend a summer in Antarctica
(hence, the penguins).

They retired almost twenty-seven years ago. They've travelled all over the country, to Mexico & Canada. Took a Hawaiian cruise. Spent twenty-six winters in Arizona exploring the Southwest. And now, finally, Dad is starting to slow down. Just a little past fifty. Now that he's in his nineties, he wants to learn to use a computer. Oh yeah, he took up Wii bowling, too.



Happy Birthday, Dad! We'll throw you an even bigger party for your hundredth birthday!