wedding anniversary – Page 2 – Roadkill Crossing

By Bruce Stambaugh

Soon my wife and I will have been married for 41 years. How have we made it this far? Well, this may sound funny, but the answer to that question in part is because we manage to avoid each other.

I think I better explain. My wife and I both believe in being community activists. That is a fancy way of saying we get involved in local activities, many of them on a volunteer basis.

Over those 41 years of marriage, Neva and I have recognized a familiar pattern. She goes out the drive just as I am coming in or vice versa. When we first noticed this routine, we laughed about the happenstance. The phenomenon has continued with amazing regularity.

When Neva comes in the drive as I am leaving, we just roll our eyes in common acceptance and acknowledgment of the many paths our busy lives have taken us. We recognize the importance of accepting and encouraging our individual interests and areas of service as important ingredients of any successful marriage.

Our house by Bruce Stambaugh — Where our driveway moments occur.

With us, this is pretty much how it goes. Neva has a 10 a.m. meeting scheduled in Millersburg with the thrift store where she volunteers. I have the morning free to tinker around the house or write. After lunch, Neva arrives home, and I need to leave for a rendezvous with a local resident regarding a township issue. I’m a township trustee.

We haven’t necessarily planned these driveway moments. It’s just the way it has panned out time and again over our 41-year marriage. I come in the drive, Neva goes out. It’s like clockwork.

If anything, it’s more about trusting each other and commitment to community than intentional evasion. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons our marriage has not only grown in years, it’s thrived.

We respect each other and each other’s interests. We also give each other the freedom and space to exercise those interests. The fact that those activities often coincide with a community event is possibly the glue that has helped hold our loving relationship together.

Neither of us would begin to pretend to be perfect or that ours is a model marriage. That innate trust, however, allows us to do our own thing while actually reinforcing our husband and wife relationship.

I’m not bragging when I say that we feel blessed to have lasted this long as a couple. Marital bliss for our generation has turned out to be a 50/50 proposition. I feel for those who have tried to hold their marriage together, giving their all to no avail. I am ever so thankful that we have hung in there, even during difficult times.

With the varying schedules and comings and goings, having a supporting community around us has certainly enhanced our chances for success. We fully and humbly recognize that we have not been on this long journey alone. We have many people to thank for being there for us through thick and thin.

Friends, neighbors, church members, and especially family have all played important roles in the success and longevity of our marriage. Our son once asked me what the secret to our longevity of marriage was. I didn’t hesitate in answering, “There are no secrets between us.”

That includes where Neva is going again when I pull into the driveway.

By Bruce Stambaugh

My wife and I will soon celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary.

I could be mean and say that 39 years seems like a really long time. It has been, but in a good way. Not that our marriage has been all peaches and cream and full of roses. There have been a few thorns along the way. But I won’t presume to tell my wife’s side of the story.

Let’s just say we are both human. And I recognize I that I have not always been the easiest person to live with. But I do my best to make it interesting.

As I look back over all those years, there are a lot of stories to be told, and then there are some that will never be told. Perhaps the most intriguing is how we met.

The short answer to that is that I chased Neva around a three-acre field filled with tender cucumber plants. We were on a mission/study trip in Kentucky with the youth from my church. The group’s assignment was to hoe the weeds in the field. Once Neva realized I was hoeing faster to catch up to her, she increased her weed eradication, too.

I just took that as sign that she liked me. You know how women can play hard to get. Well, I must have been right about her feelings because nine days after we had met we were engaged. You read correctly. Nine days. And if you thought that was fast, we married just nine months later without the shotgun. I was 23, she 21, both much too young.

We made sure we told our children not to repeat such foolishness in their own romantic adventures. That bit of advice probably wasn’t necessary. I think they saw the silliness in our story more than we did.

Regardless, facts are facts, and love is love. We’re still married after all those years. Of course, we have made our share of mistakes and misstatements. But rather than dwell on details, we’ve each managed to find forgiveness time after time.

As I recalled those 39 years, certain instances came to mind as if they had happened yesterday. The wedding day was one of those recollections.

The thing I remember foremost was just how scared I was. It wasn’t that I was having second thoughts. I was so out of it I’m not sure I was having any thoughts at all, and I hadn’t even had a bachelor’s party.

Thing is, I thought I was calm until an uncle made a sarcastic comment about how nice it was that the farmer across the road from the rural church had spread liquid sunshine on his field. I had to ask what he meant.

My uncle couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the pungent manure odor. I’m not sure I smelled it even after he had said something.

I remember that most of my fourth grade class came in Paul Rohr’s refurbished school bus. During the ceremony they were the quietest they had been all year.

I remember that it took so long for the greeting line to end that people were leaving the reception before the bride and groom arrived. I also remember accidentally stepping on my wife’s wedding dress as we exited the church, and her finger wagging in my face. I knew I was a goner right then and there.

Somehow, we have made it this far, two houses, two children, both grown and happily married, and three grandchildren later.

Through good times and bad times, in sickness and in health, at work and at play, we have tangoed together for 39 years. Here’s hoping year number 40 will be the best one of all.

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