Wednesday, January 21, 2015

48 Years Today.


Remembering the day: my mother planned the entire wedding because I was 18 and had no idea what a wedding should be like. The only ones I had been to were church basement affairs of my cousins on one side, and the wedding of another cousin in Darien Ct. at a country club. One of the Hiltons was in attendance.

Mine was like neither.

The only thing I held out for was a short dress. I had tripped on my full-length prom dress the year before and had fears of repeating that. 125 people were invited and the reception was at the now gone Sunken Gardens Restaurant in Philadelphia. We had no money for a band but the restaurant had one, which we made good use of. It was a gorgeous day, a surprising fifty some degrees and sunny. A funeral director my parents knew drove us there in his limousine.


Dad and me
I had three bridesmaids, all dressed in short aqua dresses, which we had bought for very little at Gimbels Department Store. I am still in touch with one of them. After the reception ended, we went back to New Brunswick for a few days and then I returned to Philly, resumed my job with the phone company, waiting for my promised transfer.

Living with my parents for three months was pretty awful. When Phil picked me up on the weekends, my mother expressed regret that we wanted to go back to New Brunswick since our time with them was growing short. I also resumed  my teenage chores of cleaning the bathroom on Saturday mornings and drying the dishes after dinner. They didn't give me my allowance though.

When I finally got my transfer to New Jersey Bell, things improved until my mother started asking about grandchildren.  Three years later, Josh was born and the next year Megan. What a great life. Sure there has been a tragedy or two, but never one between us.  

To my exemplary husband, I love you.  And to my parents, I miss you.

17 comments:

George said...

Happy Anniversary! I bet those 48 years went by fast!

Randy Johnson said...

Congrats on the anniversary.

seana graham said...

Patti, that's a great story. Many felicitations of the day.

Tony Conaway said...

Nice post, and happy anniversary! I don't remember the Sunken Gardens, but I was born in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, so there are a lot of Center City places I don't know.

TracyK said...

That is a lovely story, Patti. Eighteen years old, I cannot imagine. Congratulations on 48 years. My husband and I had our 35th anniversary on Monday, the 19th (I was much older than 18). That felt like quite an accomplishment.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Sunken Gardens was in Mt. Airy, Tony. I love Manayunk.
Thanks Seana and Tracy. Staying married at all today seems like a miracle. Happy anniversary to you, Tracy. Funny that there are so many January weddings. We have several friends with them.

Jerry House said...

Congrats to Phil. He got a charmer!

YA Sleuth said...

Congrats! Funny, our wedding was similar (going on 21 years, got a while to catch up with you :-)

Hope you celebrate. It's nice to have a favorite person to share life with.

Ron Scheer said...

Ahead of you. We just passed the 49-year mark in December. Lynda observed the day by breaking her arm and getting 3 handsome firemen to take her in an emergency unit to the hospital.

BTW. Great photo; you both look great and so relaxed in each other's company--well over the apprehension in your faces 48 years ago.

Deb said...

Great photo--your love for each other shines through. My husband and I are a few weeks shy of our 26th anniversary. It's funny, but with divorce being such a common feature of adult relationships in our world today, I notice one of the characteristics that is shared by many of the book bloggers I regularly read is a long-term, strong marriage/partnership. I wonder if that's just coincidence!

Anonymous said...

Happy Anniversary and congratulations!!

Jeff Meyerson said...

Happy Belated Anniversary, Patti (and Phil).

Your wedding was way more elaborate than ours. Even though we were engaged, Jackie's younger sister suddenly got engaged and planned to get married six months before us. (They were divorced after 19 years. It never should have happened.)

We canceled our big wedding and got married in the rabbi's study (Jackie wore a short dress too) with only 25 people in attendance. Then we all drove into the city and had our reception/dinner at the (long defunct} Cattleman restaurant. We went to our new apartment (we had to sleep on the floor because it took several weeks to get a bed in those days) and Monday we went back to work. (I was working at the MLA headquarters and Jackie had jsut started her first year of teaching.) We went on a belated honeymoon to London six months later. This was 44 years ago.

Many, many more happy years.

Jeff M.

Charles Gramlich said...

Very cool. Congratulations on it all.

Unknown said...

Ah, so very nice. Ain't love grand? Congratulations!

And Gimbel's! Now you make me homesick (and you make me feel old)! Of the Pittsburgh department stores, Gimbel's was my family's favorite. Oh the joys of riding the escalators!

Rick Robinson said...

We wish you the very happiest of anniversaries. I hope you two were able to do something special and fun on the day.

We've only got (almost) 9 years, but then I didn't get married until I was 60. Yes, you read that right, I was a bachelor until I was 60 I really liked living alone, but life is better with Barbara, and in Portland, and retired. We got married at the Old Courhouse in Santa Ana, CA, an historical building.

I remember Gimbel's Department Store, there was one in Los Angeles.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Thanks all for your kind words and good wishes. And the same to you--people I have come to think of as my second family.

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

Patti, hearty congratulations to you and Phil! I wish you both many, many happy years together.