{"id":1172,"date":"2008-12-02T13:43:23","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T20:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2008-12-02T16:14:17","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T23:14:17","slug":"amidst-all-the-excitement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1172","title":{"rendered":"Amidst All the Excitement . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

. . . I almost forgot it was our anniversary.\u00a0 But Donna reminded me, and I remembered.\u00a0 Being reminded counts as remembering, right?\u00a0 It’s not like she had to tell<\/em> me!<\/p>\n

We were married at the Rathaus in Wiesbaden, Germany<\/a>, on December 2nd, 1965.\u00a0 It was a civil ceremony, conducted in German and English.\u00a0 My parents were there, and three of my sisters.\u00a0 After the ceremony, when Donna and I emerged onto the street, a band of German schoolkids walking by circled around us and sang a little song.\u00a0 It was a beautifully sunny day, a precious rarity in Wiesbaden.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>
At the Rathaus: my parents, Donna and me, my sisters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Donna and I lived in a small rented apartment in Wiesbaden-Bierstadt.\u00a0 A renovated chicken coop, actually, but we had our own bathroom, a small kitchen, and a bedroom\/living room.\u00a0 I worked at the Wiesbaden Air Base exchange as a store clerk, and later on as a truck driver delivering goods to other exchanges in Germany. Donna, after our son Gregory was born in March 1966, also worked for the US military exchange system as a bookkeeper.\u00a0 We rode buses to and from work.\u00a0 My folks helped us by having us over for one or two dinners a week, and sometimes loaning us a car for weekend trips.\u00a0 I took night classes on base and earned a few college credits.\u00a0 Our combined hourly income was less than two-and-a-half bucks, but in two years we saved enough money to hop an Iceland Air flight back to the East Coast, buy a used car, drive to Sacramento, find new jobs, and set up housekeeping there.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/a>
Christmas 1965 at our apartment in Wiesbaden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Things we’d consider enormous obstacles today seemed like everyday life 43 years ago.\u00a0 When we catch ourselves worrying about our own kids, we try to remind ourselves that we were once a couple of clueless 19-year-olds.\u00a0 It’s hard to remember that most of the time.<\/p>\n

\"Circa<\/a>
Circa 1966: I'm lookin' all brain-damaged, but isn't Donna hot?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m so happy we’ve made it this far.\u00a0 Happy anniversary, Donna!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . I almost forgot it was our anniversary.\u00a0 But Donna reminded me, and I remembered.\u00a0 Being reminded counts as remembering, right?\u00a0 It’s not like she had to tell me! We were married at the Rathaus in Wiesbaden, Germany, on December 2nd, 1965.\u00a0 It was a civil ceremony, conducted in German and English.\u00a0 My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}