Happy Anniversary!

This was the week of my whirlwind vacation trip to the beach with my oldest sister, who lives in Harrisburg. I caught the train in Tyrone and rode it down to meet her on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we spent one perfect day in Atlantic City. On Thursday, my sister brought me back to my parents' house, where my husband picked me up for the return trip home (much to that tabbycat's delight and great relief).

We had a lovely visit with my parents and my little niece, and enjoyed a tasty lunch from the Creme Stop. This past weekend was a big one for family events: June 17 was my husband's birthday, father's day, and also . . . my parents' 68th wedding anniversary!

My mom and dad had a photo album sitting on a table in the kitchen, and I took a quick look through it. I removed several of the photos from the album and took pictures of them so I'd have them digitally. This is one of my parents, Lee and Norma, taken while wearing their wedding finery. The photo was taken by my grandfather (my mom's dad), who was a portrait photographer in Richfield, PA.

My parents eloped; when she was 19 and he was 20, they ran away to Maryland to get married on short notice, and on their return trip through Harrisburg, they stopped to see a movie: Annie, Get Your Gun. After they were married, they moved in with my mom's parents, Grammy and Pappy Carvell, and in fact my two oldest sisters were born in that house.

Then they built a home in the woods, on the road back to the mountain behind McAlisterville, where the next sister was born. (The rest of us were born in the hospital, which is the more usual way these days.) At full count, there were six of us kids, five girls and one boy. We grew up playing amid central Pennsylvania's beautiful woods and waters, my native habitat.

During the time that I was a child at home, my father worked on the railroad yards at Enola, across the river from Harrisburg. I don't know if that is how I came by my love of trains, but I have always had an affinity for them. My mother worked for a few years in a shirt factory and then devoted herself full-time to the raising of their family.

I credit my mother and father for showing me what a real marriage is, and for providing a fine example. Two people can be true to each other, throw in their lot together, and have a lifelong love affair full of adventure and romance. (To be sure, it takes plenty of hard work, patience, and forbearance, too.)

Yes, great and lasting love is possible. I know it. For I have seen firsthand the light that love makes. And if I know anything at all about love, it is because I have been taught well by those who know it best.

For the soundtrack, I've picked two songs, a Johnny and June Cash one that I know my parents like, and one just for me (for I'm not sure they're big Dwight Yoakum fans). Here are Johnny and June, with Jackson. And here is Dwight Yoakum, with Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

Related Blips:
Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree . . .
This One Goes Out To the Ones I Love
'Twas the Night Before Christmas
The Kiss
Family Portrait :-)
When It Was Dark, You Carried the Sun in Your Hand