Proof yet again that you can find ANYTHING with Google Images: not just any bag, but a 48th wedding anniversary bag!
And how nice of Facebook to remind me of the date! But I did remember. In fact, we’ve made big plans for the day. Donna’s going to work at the gun shop and as soon as I finish this I’m off to Anytime Fitness to work out for an hour, then run errands: donate a surplus TV to Goodwill, return the Comcast digital receiver thingie we used with it, call the motorcycle insurance company to take the Ducati off our policy (I signed the title over to Polly the day after Thanksgiving). Tonight we’re walking downtown with friends, then going to dinner at Donna’s favorite downtown restaurant, the only place in town that serves shrimp & grits with Sriracha sauce. Okay, the last part is vaguely anniversary-ish.
If my count is right, today marks our 48th year of wedded bliss. What is the traditional gift for a 48th anniversary? According to Ask.com, “the 48th wedding anniversary does not have any customary materials or symbols associated with it. A contemporary one though has a theme of optical goods.”
Well. Donna got new glasses two weeks ago. Mine are less than six months old. We’ve been thinking about getting a good DSLR camera for Christmas, so maybe this is a sign. Now that I think of it, we’ve also been debating whether to install a direct internet connection for the Roku streaming TV box in the family room … that’s optical, right? I’ll ask the Comcast folks about that when I return the digital receiver today.
Here are two photos of us in our early years. The first is Donna with our baby boy Gregory, taken some time in 1966. The second, I think, is a year later: me and Gregory enjoying a smoke and a beer (we didn’t know any better in those days).
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God, we were just kids.
And here we are in the early 1990s, when we were stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. We had this photo taken at a Japanese wedding palace. We showed up four hours before the photo session … thats how long it takes to get dressed and made up. I was the tallest person they had ever fitted, and parts of my outfit had to be made to order. Pretty spiffy, eh?
All in all, though, I think Ask.com has it about right: forty-eight is just a beat on the countdown to the big five-oh. We’ll definitely do something big then.
Happy anniversary, Donna!
Updates & Corrections (12/6/13): per my loyal and loving mate, the baby in the B&W photo of me with pipe and beer is actually our daughter Polly, and the photo dates from around 1976. The photo of Donna and I in our kimonos was our 25th anniversary present to ourselves … you can actually see that in Japanese at the bottom of the photo.