a 60th to celebrate

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of my parents' meeting. My father loves to tell the story (and he has just corrected me on a few details, having found this post before I could tell him). I can hear the lead up (a story for another day) and then the moment itself, as she comes to the door of the Cornell chaplain's house in a red slicker and matching hat to deliver a homemade ironing board for doing sacristy altar linens (big enough to do a corporal, my mother assures me). As though struck by lightning, he crosses two rooms to meet her and can't feel his feet as he walks. This, he already knows, is the girl he's going to marry.

I don't think Mom remembers it well - though she did correct my details about her outfit.

Mom and Dad in 1959, probably the front door of the Kappa house

The best he could do was a coffee date two days later.

He came back during finals week in June and sat with her as she hemmed a dress for her home ec final.  I've worn it - she saved it all those years.

His first REAL date with her, he says, was dinner and a movie later that week. On that date, he told her that God had ordained that they be married and that there wasn't anything she could do about it. Her jaw hit the ground...

She thought it was a line, though.

This summer, they will have been married for 58 years.  I'd call that a pretty good line, wouldn't you?

a love story

Addendum: Dad points out that she is a more beautiful woman now than she was then.