Fiacré's spade: 60th Anniversary

When I was a girl, I sometimes read about couples celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversaries. They usually had gotten married when they were 16 or 17, and I would think that my parents would never make it because they were so old when they got married. Dad was 29 and Hilda was one week shy of 25. She is fond of saying that she narrowly missed being an old maid, 25 being the cutoff in those days.

I reflected on this memory when they reached 50 years and again last week when they celebrated 60. Terry and I will be slowing down a lot by our 60^th anniversary, because we were really old when we got married. At our 60^th, I’ll be almost 99 and Terry will be 103.

My parents have had their ups and downs, but what impresses me is that after all this time, they are really good friends. I didn’t appreciate that until I lived with them.

To celebrate this auspicious occasion, Doug and Pam met us at the Lake Geneva Inn for supper. I had been so busy grading lab reports that my only wardrobe planning had been to hope the warm weather would hold so I could wear the dress I got for Robyn’s wedding last April. When the weather became more seasonally appropriate, I was at a loss. Arriving home from work 15 minutes before departure for the restaurant, I just put the dress on anyway. At least the jacket had ¾ sleeves.

We got to the Inn as the sun was going down on a windy, cold day. The lobby was filled with young people, but the restaurant was fairly deserted. We would learn later that there was a wedding rehearsal. The wedding was the next day and was to be outdoors. They were hoping for better weather. Who plans an outdoor wedding in the middle of October?

Mom and Dad by the lake at sunset

The table was decorated with a centerpiece of yellow roses. Dad, of course, would be in charge of ordering the flowers, since flower arranging is a hobby of his. He also got nosegays for each of the women. There was some discussion of whether or not the correct term was “nosegays.” I was pretty sure that it came from the days of the Black Plague when people thought that smelling flowers would prevent the disease. In the odoriferous Middle Ages, flowers undoubtedly made the nose gay in any case.

Pam, Hilda, and I with our nosegays

Doug arranged to serve a bottle of very nice Champagne from his own cellar. We had small plates of artisan cheeses, fried calamari salad, Buffalo shrimp, and garlic-ginger quinoa salad along with several kinds of bread. For dinner, I had chicken breast with mushroom cream sauce, grilled asparagus, and roasted fingerling potatoes. Terry ordered the daily special of almond-crusted halibut with cranberry wild rice. Mom and Dad had steaks with fingerling potatoes and asparagus. Doug had veal. Pam ordered the vegetarian entrée of herbed farro and wheat berry with summer vegetables. I assumed she was trying to make healthier choices. Doug and Pam’s dinners both came with roasted hen of the woods mushrooms. We’ve got those growing under the oak trees. Maybe that can be our cash crop!

Mom and Dad had ordered a cake to be delivered to the restaurant. After eating our delicious food and getting our leftovers packed to go, our server, Terri, brought the cake with two candles. Mom and Dad blew out the candles, and Terri whisked the cake back to the kitchen for cutting. When she returned, I noted with infinite pleasure that the cake was chocolate! Hooray! Doug and Pam declined leftovers, so Terri divided the rest of the cake into two boxes.