Happy birthday to my husband

Sunday was our anniversary; today, Cliff turns 64, and for about three weeks, we'll be the same age. Then I'll be a year older than he is again.

There's a story behind the timing of our anniversary and its close proximity to Cliff's birthday.

Back in the old days (the 1960's), men needed parental consent to be married in this state if they were under twenty-one. For women, the age was eighteen. Two of Cliff's younger siblings had ill-fated, short-lived marriages around the time we first met, and I often heard his mom say, "I'm never again going to sign for any of my kids to get married."

So, when we decided to get married, I was of age. Cliff wasn't, quite. We told his parents we were going to get married in a couple of weeks, and his mom asked, "What are you guys waiting for?"

"We're waiting for Cliff to turn twenty-one," I told her. "You said you weren't signing for any more of your kids."

"Oh, I'll sign for you-uns," she responded.

So Melva signed for us to get our marriage license and we went to get our blood tests (blood tests were required in the olden days). And we became man and wife two days before Cliff turned twenty-one.

I've always detested the hype and expense involved in big weddings, so we tracked down a nearby preacher the day we were to get married, and had him do the deed; he asked us, "What sort of ceremony do you want?"

"The shortest one you got," Cliff told him.

His mom, and his brother's wife, Faye, were our witnesses.

And we lived happily ever after.

Quite a contrast to Pioneer Woman's black heels and tractor wheels, wouldn't you say?

My mother, having been totally left out of the wedding plans (what plans?), baked a cake a few weeks later; you can read about that HERE, and see a picture of us as newlyweds. Probably in the same clothes we wore when we got married.

another rainy day

The gardens appreciate all this precipitation. I planted a couple of rows of Silver Queen sweet corn yesterday, knowing the rain was coming. It's really late to be planting something that requires eighty days to mature, but I'm only playing out there in the garden anyhow; if it does well, fine. If not, at least I tried. Cliff and his sister have plenty of peaches-and-cream corn in their plot, several different small plantings of it; so we won't be without corn-on-the-cob (when I was growing up, we called them "roasting ears", which I thought was one word and pronounced it "roastineers".

I got almost all of the garden tilled that needed it yesterday, when my Ariens tiller bit the dust; Cliff says it's going to need a new engine. Bummer. Since we plan to do some running around today, we'll stop by and see what that's going to cost... or even if we can still get an engine for such an old tiller. Cliff's sister, Rena, has a tiller that needs something minor done to it (fuel pump, I think); we may end up fixing hers. I don't know how long I'll be gardening, and I hate to spend a lot of money fixing a tiller that might not get that much use.

I'm actually glad it's a rainy day. There are a few places I want to go, and since yesterday was our anniversary, Cliff has been pursuaded to take me: I want to visit the Wild Bird Store again and see about getting an oriole feeder and a bluebird feeder... maybe even a Purple Martin house; I want to check out a couple of nurseries (and possibly Walmart) to see if there are some desirable flowers and plants marked down, since the season for planting is over; and I wouldn't mind having Olive Garden's soup, salad, and breadsticks for lunch.

Poor Cliff has to go back to work this afternoon, after several days off.