Late on an afternoon 50 years ago I was tossing a football around with a couple of wife Beverly’s brothers. That evening we were married in Humboldt’s First Baptist Church.
Today’s anniversary celebration contradicts many times over the old wives’ tale that seeing your bride the day of the wedding is bad luck.
Levity always has been a companion of mine, a characteristic that Beverly has had a bit of difficulty putting to rest over the years, and even now I feel compelled on occasion to couch an observation with “just kidding.”
But it’s no joke what a tolerant wife she has been, willing to overlook my tendency to throw myself into hobbies or projects.
To wit: The night before daughter Brenda was born, I was coaching the Register’s PeeWee baseball team at the old Bassett park. Her bag was packed when I returned home about 9:30. Seven hours later we were the parents of a darling little girl.
About the same time I became consumed with hunting Indian artifacts, a preoccupation I can attribute to my long-time good friend John Zahm. I spent far too many weekends hunting “rocks,” while Beverly kept the home fire burning with Brenda, and later Bob, at her side. Hunting, fishing and trapping also took up goodness knows how many hours, although for years income from sale of furs paid our property taxes and often dictated our Christmas gift-giving.
Work also took me away often, when it was just Emerson Lynn and I doing the Register’s reporting and I was responsible for sports, including when basketball games were played every night of the week except Sunday.
We are fortunate to have two children of whom we are extremely proud. Brenda and her children, Hudson and Olivia, live in Roswell, N.M., where husband Sean is a minister at Grace Community Church. Bob has a law practice in Iola; he and wife Melanie have four children, Noah, Alayna, Emma and Maddox.
They will be with us today, along with members of our extended families, where it all began at First Baptist, a journey I have been lucky, even by breaking tradition on our wedding day, to take with a wonderful Christian woman.
A word of advice: The Bible talks about man and woman becoming one with marriage. But, it doesn’t happen overnight. It is a work in progress that continues even after 50 years.
50 years of marriage; a wonderful journey
