Should Divine Providence so decree, my Wonderful First Wife and I will mark 100 years of unsurpassed marital bliss come October 16.

One hundred years?  That’s right.  Fifty apiece.  Sally says it sometimes seems like 100 years.  What could she mean by that?  Probably a compliment, don’t you think?

She is, of course, the first best thing that happened to me.  The next best things were Sarah and Mary Bart, and then the grandchildren.  Sarah and her children live in Connecticut, so we don’t really get to be a physical presence in their lives except on an infrequent basis.  A real shame.

Mary Bart is in West Palm Beach.  Visits there are all too rare.  Our family – the girls and grandchildren – have very, very busy lives, so visits here are rare, indeed.

Sarah Paul Cox (Sally) married a man who was 5-and-a-half years older than she.  She marked her 21^st birthday on a Friday, and we married the next day.  She says she won’t do this again.

We’ve had a good journey.  She has been a wonderful partner.  Had she aspired to lofty social status and affluence, then hers would have been a half century of disappointment.  As some measure success, in conventional ways with regard to money and influence and the acquisition of things, her First Husband hasn’t set the world on fire.  More like just a few embers, really.

Like many married folks, we sometimes use nicknames for each other.  I call her my Homecoming Queen (which she was), and sometimes my Steel Magnolia (before the movie came out), among other terms of  endearment.

Sometimes she calls me Old Timer, although I can’t imagine why.  That I’m now so hearing impaired  causes me, I suspect, to not hear other appellations.  All of which, I’m sure, are most complimentary.

Just recently she referred to me as “a crusty old man.”  Crusty.  Me?  No way.

Personally, I’m grateful beyond measure to still be here, and to have shared  a half century of my journey with such a special person.

I hope she feels the same way about her life with this now “crusty old man.”

It would be my hope that many of you have such good feelings about your life’s marital journey as well.

APROPOS – “A good wife who can find?  She is far more precious than jewels . . . Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her . . .”

– Proverbs 31