52 years

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Another wedding anniversary…

January is the month I got married…52 years ago. There were patches of ice on the ground in much of Dallas on the day, but the roads were clear enough that our small ceremony and larger reception at my parents’ house went as planned.

Looking back at the years, I am a little surprised at how many of them there are! We were among the first of our friends to marry and we survived those early years even better than we expected…being in school for most of the first 10 years.

There are so many positive trends that made our marriage easier than most:

Our careers were enjoyable and well-paying --- more than keeping up with inflation (which was a challenge in the 1970s and 1980s).

Every move to a new home was a better house than the last.

Our daughter was born after 16 years of marriage and still brings joy to our lives.

Our medical expenses were never great (always well covered by insurance through our employers and, now, Medicare).

Travel was always within our budget (we now tend to stay in hotels rather than camp as we did in the early years) and has resulted in many new experiences.

The post-career years have been good (so far).

Of course, there were some choices that might not have been the best, but they didn’t have a long-term negative impact. My philosophy all along has been to live in a way that I will have few regrets….and it has served me well.

Fireworks on July 4th

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My daughter and I were traveling on July 4th. Our original plan had been to enjoy the fireworks in a park in Norman, Oklahoma but it started raining around 6 PM and it didn’t look like the rain would clear until much later; the program was going to be delayed, at least.  

The radar indicated that it wasn’t raining in Oklahoma City so after dinner we headed into the city to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial at the site of 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. The museum was closed…we went to see the grounds: the 168 empty chairs representing the people that perished (small chairs for the children), the reflecting pool, the gates of time (the peace before the blast at 9:01 and 9:03 the first second of recovery), the Survivor Tree (an American Elm), and tiles made by children…sent to Oklahoma City after the bombing. The sun was getting closer to the horizon and it began sprinkling as we were getting ready to leave. It was a poignant place…flags had been placed by each chair in celebration of the 4th of July.

As we drove back to Norman, there was harder rain, lots of lightning. We began to wonder if the lightning would cause the city to cancel the events that were planned in the park. It was very dramatic – cloud to ground and cloud to cloud. We were glad to get back to the hotel.

We enjoyed the lightning show from our hotel window. The rain tapered off, but the lightning continued…with almost no thunder. We started to see some fireworks – not professional shows but clearly people that had planned their own fireworks event. Looking at the map – we expected to see the fireworks in the park at some point but the time it was schedule came and went. Lightning was still lighting up the sky. We decided that the show must have been canceled. About 5 minutes later we heard a barrage of fireworks sounds…we looked out the window again and it was obviously the fireworks in the park – high, loud, a steady stream of bursts for at least 15 minutes! I took pictures through hotel window. Toward the end, it was obvious that there were a lot of smoke in the air from the fireworks…they began to look like science fiction images of explosions inside a nebula.

I’m seeing more stories about how environmentally unfriendly fireworks can be…impacting air quality and then the remnants of the explosions (some toxic) drifting down over a wide area. And many pets are panicked by the sounds of fireworks. Evidently some places are moving toward drone light shows rather than fireworks. Maybe I’ll find one of those shows next year. I appreciate the effort Norman, Oklahoma put in for their event this year…even though I ended up observing it from my hotel window!