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It happened 50 years ago, on Saturday, June 14, 1975. I remember that day so well that it almost seems like it was last week, or at most the week before that! I remember that it rained that day, but it stopped prior to the wedding. As the song says, “Don’t blink, just like that your six years old and you take a nap, and you wake up and you’re twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife.” Well, that’s close but it wasn’t exactly like that for us.  We started dating the summer before Jean’s senior year, but I am slightly older than her and had already graduated, so we were never technically high-school sweethearts. We were both still in our teens when we exchanged vows and rings, but now it does seem like I blinked and 50 years has passed.    

We didn’t simply answer a question with “I do” or “I will.” We memorized our vows and spoke them to one another. I was so afraid that I would forget the words that I unnecessarily taped a copy to the prayer bench. We held hands, looked each other in the eyes, and said, “I, Bill/Jean, take thee Jean/Bill, to be my wife/husband from this hour forward. I promise to love you, to be faithful to you in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of sickness and in times of health as long as we shall live.” Through prayer, and with help from God Almighty, we have managed to hold true to those 53 words for 50 years now. Not only have we loved one another during those years but our love is deeper now than we ever imagined possible. We have managed to faithfully keep those vows for half a century!  

We have had times of plenty and times of want. In the early years, we had plenty…plenty of not much! We lived in college and seminary apartments our first six-years of marriage.  We barely owned enough furniture to fill them up. We managed to not starve to death, but we did eat our fair share of peanut butter sandwiches and Spam! Do you know you can bake Spam in the oven, with a little brown sugar and cloves on it, and it miraculously turns into ham? An imagination can be a wonderful thing! We’ve never been rich, except in the things of God, but with His help we have always managed to have what we needed and even some things we probably didn’t need. 

We have had times of joy and sorrow. We have smiled and laughed far more than we’ve cried. We have had 50 years of overall happiness. We’ve said goodbye to so many family members and good friends, some way too soon. Jean is blessed to still have all her siblings, but I only have one out of three still here. We’ve said goodbye to all our parents. We’ve buried some of the best dogs I’ve ever known in the back yard, as well as a few cats and one giant hermit crab named Herman.

We’ve had times of sickness and good health. We’ve survived terrible vehicle accidents. We’ve had more surgeries than they had on General Hospital. We’ve survived broken bones, replaced knees, damaged internal organs, colon surgery, torn retinas, cancer, open heart surgery, and the common things such as flu and Covid. We are like Timex…we ‘ve taken a licking and kept on ticking!”

Thank you, Jean Willis King, for 50 marvelous years! I look forward to 50 more! Okay, okay, I know, but at least many more!