Dance Me To The End Of Love And Celebrate Every Anniversary All The Time Elita Sohmer Clayman

Today July 5^th is our 52^nd wedding anniversary. That is a long, long time especially now days. I am trying to remember things about that day. Tuesday, it was at 630PM in the evening of a summer day. I had just turned 26 two weeks before and he had turned 30 a month before. We had a lovely wedding with a sit down dinner, hors d’oeuvres, dinner and a delightful, what was called then, a sweet table. Everyone could go up to it and pick what dessert they wanted and it was given to them, to go back to the table to enjoy. The wedding cake was cut and the slices put into small boxes for the guests to take home.

My brother and a few friends were his groomsman as they were called then. His brother-in-law was his best man and his sister and my sister-in-law were matrons of honor. A cousin of mine was maid of honor. His young niece age four and my young niece age six were the flower girls and my nephew age three was ring bearer. My niece is now a grandmother of two and the youngest one was born two days ago to her daughter who is my great niece and she was born on my birthday thirty-one years ago. Her second child being born two days ago makes me have a great title of Great, Great Aunty and that is sure nice. It sounds complicated, but it is such a sweet event to become a great, great aunty for the second time.

Life has been good to us and we were blessed with a son and a daughter and now we have their spouses as our in-law children and two grandchildren from each child, making us the loving grandparents of four smart and gorgeous and handsome grand kids.

Old age is setting in and we try to block it as much is possible. As my friend Steven Behr, Sr. in Washington State always says let us have wellness in place of illness. That we strive for, watch what we eat; though do indulge sometimes in foods you should only eat now and then. We watch our weight, exercise on our stationary bikes and try to be positive when the aches and pains suddenly appear out of nowhere. We try to ballroom dance whenever the aching knees cease to ache for a while and that is good for the mind, soul and the soles of your feet. We call each other honey and he flirts with me like I am a young girl. I try to look pretty all the time and when we were on our honeymoon all those fifty-two years ago, that first night, I did not wash off my makeup before going to bed, so I would look pretty all night long. Silly, but true.

We lived first in an apartment, moved to a larger one down the street when the first child was born and a few years later when the second was on the way to the new home that is still our home now, forty-eight years later. We have remodeled, updated, furnished it with new furniture over the years and kept it looking quite lovely and clean all these years.

He retired about five years ago and sometimes we get on each other’s nerves being together so much. That is normal behavior for old married folks; but most of the time we are friends, husband, wife and lovers. We love our children, our home, our life, and the travels we have done and have high hopes to live another bunch of the coming years. We have lived to see our children marry and be happy and our four grandkids growing up into fine children, teenagers and one to be out of teenage years this September.

What more of life can you ask? I write for different online newspapers and my favorite is this one, Hunt Valley-Cockeysville.Patch.com. I have been doing this for one year this coming July 19^th 2012.

I am proficient using the computer to put down my many thoughts of now, the days when I was a kid, then a teen, then a young adult and now a senior. Times have changed in these fifty-two years; naughty words are said every day on television whereas in 1952, you could not use the word pregnant on TV. They had to say with child. You could not use many other words that are also used every day and no one thinks anything of it.

There was no cholesterol known about then, there were no DVD players or IPods or cellphones, E-book readers or Blackberry items. There were no heart transplants, no laser eye surgery. There were only three local television stations, no remote controls, and no air conditioned cars except for the few rich people who could afford them. Also, very few homes were air-conditioned either. There were no computers for home use and so many things, there were not, that is almost difficult to remember. Most homes had only one bathroom and if you were a bit well to do, you had a second one which was called a powder room bathroom, meaning no tub or shower, just the necessary toilet and sink. Downstairs in the basement, it was called a club cellar, now called family rooms or the new word is great rooms. There were no dishwashers; we were the dishwashers in our own home. However, our first apartment came with one and I never used it the whole three years I lived there. I was so use to hand washing them, I felt I saved electricity and did not use it. Most people I knew did not own one, this happened to be in this development’s brochure touting it had this new invention and everyone thought that so great and real modern.

There was no yogurt to eat every day for your health, there were lots of sweets to be made from scratch or you could indulge in getting them once in a while from a bakery. That was a treat getting the treat.

Ice cream began coming in half gallon sizes instead of pints and we never got a pizza from a pizza parlor. We ate Chinese food in the restaurant, never got carryout in 1960. Crab cakes were two dollars and fifty cents each and one night, my husband came home from work and it was our anniversary and he brought home for a late night dinner, four of them for the grand total of ten dollars. We thought ourselves quite prosperous eating ten dollar crab cakes at eleven in the evening. Those were the days, when we could eat late at night and then go to bed and be able to sleep about ninety minutes later and not have indigestion.

A lot has changed, some for the better, some maybe not. We can find anything about anybody, any activity or just about everything on this earth from the Internet and Google. Google sounds like a delicious dessert or even a type of entrée in a specialty restaurant. You can type in a date from yesteryear and find what happened that day and even the day of the week it was. You can find out the national and local news of that day plus the weather. There were no meteorologists telling us of the coming storms or snow events five days in advance. In this past storm last Friday night, even the smart computers and people running them did not know of the terrible loss of electricity, of life and destruction that came about from it.

My friend Steven Behr sent me an email anniversary greeting card, no need to go and buy one now days. On it, it played some music and the important line said “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

I guess that is what we all should do, one way or another. Dance and Live Life to the end of love and then we will have been successful in all the endeavors we attempted to do and have. Enjoy and prosper health wise, happy wise, and knowledge wise and know that you are knowledgeable, erudite and a master of living your life with all that you desire and have acquired. Dance and live it to the end of love and you will have love to the end.

Happy anniversary to Jerry and Elita from each of us to the other and when any anniversary comes your way, whether it be wedding, buying a home, child born, remembering a fine vacation,  think that anniversary means commemoration, celebration and honoring. Remember to honor those you love and care for and they will do the same for you. Celebrate any anniversary of everything that comes your way and commemorate and pay tribute to it.It is yours and no one can take it away from you.