Ask Wednesday: What are you doing for your 49th wedding anniversary?

Photo taken by either Morris's best man, Jim Rix, or
Carolyn's matron of honor, Carole Sue Rix, Jim's wife
– it was a very small, elopement wedding

Thanks for asking

By Morris Dean

If your question was actually a subtle reminder to ensure that I remembered our anniversary, thanks. But I did remember, and my wife agreed to my suggestion that we go to the North Carolina Zoo. If we really go today – the weather forecast calls for rain – I'll update this post later to let you know how it was.

Why did you decide to get married on the deadline for filing income tax returns?
    Why not? Besides, it helps make sure I don't forget.

Why did you decide to get married at all?
    You know how it is. We liked each other, and we were both ready to marry someone – why not each other?

How long had you known each other? How did you meet?
    We met exactly six weeks earlier, on a Friday, and we got married on Friday, April 15, 1966.
    I was teaching driver training, and my students that day were at Western High School (in Tulare, California). After we came back from practicing parallel parking, I decided to drop in on Alice Magill (1914-1992), one of my former teachers, who had left Tulare Union High when Western opened (in 1959) to become its Dean of Girls.
    Well, it so happened that Ms. Magill was already being visited – by this attractive, personable young woman from Western's first graduating class. And Ms. Magill seemed enthusiastic about introducing the two of us.

And you not only married her six weeks later, to the day, but you're still together, forty-nine years later!
    What was going on when you got married? You were teaching driver training?!
    That's right. I was an employee of the high school I had graduated from (Tulare Union), on a provisional teaching certificate, and I had been awarded a four-year fellowship again (I'd turned it down the first time, a year earlier) to pursue a PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University that fall.
    Carolyn had gone on to the University of California, but had lately dropped out owing to back pain. She was in Tulare to recuperate, and obviously didn't regard marriage as an impediment...so we got married, moved in with my parents for the rest of the spring, until the end of August, before driving our first automobile, a used Mercury Comet, to Evanston, Illinois.
    In the larger scheme of things, of course, the Vietnam War was going on. The Beatles were everywhere, and, as I was about to learn, IBM had introduced the System 360.

I didn't realize you have a doctorate in philosophy—
    I don't. I gave up the fellowship after one semester.

Why did you do that? Sounds crazy.
    You think so? Well, I disliked being a graduate student, and my wife disliked even more being a graduate student's wife.

That explanation sounds practiced. How many times have you given it?
    You're right. I've probably said that a few dozen times. And if it's true, when we think we're remembering something, that we're actually just remembering the last time we remembered it, it's possible that the actual reason I gave up the fellowship has been lost, transformed as I've explained it over the years. But I'm pretty sure, anyway, that it's true that my wife didn't like being a graduate student's wife....

So...that's when you learned about IBM?
    Yes. Within a few weeks, I was a trainee computer salesman in an IBM sales office at 340 Market Street, San Francisco. But let's please not get into that.

Okay. How come you stayed together so long? Forty-nine-year marriages are becoming rare.
    It's probably in our DNA. Both sets of our parents stayed married to each other until death did them part, and so did each of their two sets of parents. I'm sure we're destined to do the same.
    But are you sure marriages this long are becoming rare? People are living longer, and the population is growing. Maybe there are more 49-year marriages than ever, despite there also being more divorces.

Hmm, well, I did find this article: "Divorce Drops, Long-Lasting Marriages Rise: U.S. Census Report," Ben Forer, ABC News, May 19, 2011. You may be right. I've made a note to research this further....
    If you had it to do over, would you still have gotten married?
    The only reason I would speculate about something like that is if I were going to write a novel about my life and wanted to write a made-up story rather than one that clung to the actual trajectory. I'm not going to attempt such a project.

Any regrets?
    None I haven't forgiven myself for.

Do you believe that you and Carolyn will be married in heaven?
    If there actually is such a thing as heaven, and we both find ourselves there, why not?
    But neither of us has bought a lottery ticket for that.

Right, I think you would need to buy a ticket. But not for the other place, apparently.
    I think it depends on which theologian or apologist you consult.

Speaking of which, have you heard that they're now thinking married couples will exchange roles in heaven?
    Exchange roles? You mean, like, I'd be Carolyn's wife, and she would be my husband?...Well, it would only be fair for each of us to learn what we'd subjected the other one to.

Yes, that's what I heard—
    Plus, like Greek Tiresias, it would be pretty cool to experience being a woman – if God let us have our sexy bodies back.

Or the role exchange could be – if it's married gays or married lesbians – they'd switch to being married lesbians or married gays.
    For eternity?

The theologians are still disputing that. Some suggest that God will alternate it every hundred years or so. Maybe even mix it up and give a straight couple a hundred years as gays or lesbians—
    Can we move on to the next question, please?

What was the neatest thing you have done so far to celebrate your anniversary?
    I guess it was when I told my wife I was going to take her out to a fine restaurant (I sort of remember it was La Residence in Chapel Hill), but I'd actually arranged for the restaurant to send out a chef and prepare dinner in our own kitchen. That was pretty neat.

That must have been your 25th, or one of the multiples of 10?
    I...don't think so, but I really I don't remember.

Well it probably wasn't, if you don't remember. But something like that has "special" written all over it. Do you remember why you thought of having a chef come in?
    I don't, but I suppose that I must have heard of other people doing it, and I must have thought Carolyn would like it. She did.

What do you think you'll do for your 50th?
    Hey, we only thought of today's outing to the zoo on Monday!

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean