50

Like the song says we were two young people who didn't have a thing, just livin' on love. We were from two different worlds even though we didn't need a passport to go from one to the other. I was the wild child Rebel and he was the very conservatively raised Yankee. Since the marriage wasn't going to make it to the six month line and maybe not past six weeks, there was no wedding shower. After all, why waste their money on towels and sheets when the wild child would leave and go back to the south when the dust and lust settled.

So my first kitchen had a blue granite roasting pan with an uneven bottom and a 9x11 cake pan. We bought four forks, knifes and spoons at the five and dime for ten cents each (a total of one dollar and twenty cents) and my sister-in-law, who became my best friend, gave us a set of Melamine dishes or we would have been sharing our supper in the cake pan each evening. Mr. B never complained a single time about eating fried eggs with ruffled bottoms or bacon that was slightly burned because I was used to cooking with cast iron. We saved our Green Stamps for two months to purchase a broom and we lived on love because that was all we had.

A year later we moved back to Oklahoma for him to go to college and lots of months we lived on prayers and love but with both of us working at whatever we could find, he got his education in three and a half years...and we had our first child, a son, Lemar, during that time.

Three years later we had added two daughters, Amy and Ginny, to the family while we were in Kansas. Still livin' on love and prayers, we stretched every dollar and made the Honorable Abe Lincoln squeal as we even had to stretch pennies in those days. Teacher's pay wasn't so great but hey, we had a full set of mismatched pots and pans, a broom and enough beds for three kids so we counted ourselves as truly blessed.

Lookin' back today, the time has gone so fast. We've had tough times that drew us closer together, good times that we still laugh about and we raised three amazing kids. Our son is a biology teacher, our daughter is an English teacher and our youngest daughter works in an office where she's a cracker jack in the order entry world. They've made us proud parents and when we count our blessings, they top the list.

We've achieved more than those two young kids that started out ever hoped to accomplish in their lifetime. Life has been good to us and for us...so today I'd like to take a minute to tell Mr. B thank you for living and loving me for fifty years. And if you go on before me like it says in the song, then walk real slow because I can't imagine livin' long in this world without you. Sit on the bench at the bottom of the stairs up to the Pearly Gates, darlin', and I'll be along in just a little while. You know I'll need to hold your hand so I can get up those steps.