27 Years ago today. Seems like an eternity. Seems like yesterday.

[DFW]

On this day, 27 years ago near Washington, DC, we said our vows. It almost didn't happen. We both already had hectic schedules, but my brother saved the day by inviting us to his (which became our) wedding. Originally, he called me to ask if I wanted to be his best man. I said, sure, and would call over to Germany (I was in Boston that day) to ask if my (then-) girlfriend could make it as well. He said if we were both going to be there, we could make it a double wedding. This was music to my ears--no arrangements to make! I called her in Germany, and told her my brother was getting married, and we were invited. She said sure, she would come over. I then told her his other suggestion, and she said the German equivalent of "sure, that'll work." Not the most romantic of marriage proposals or acceptances, but we had been together for nearly 8 years already, and it's not like we were making a rash move. It was like a mini-UN (my brother's wife is from Japan) and there were people there from at least four continents that I remember, and more countries than I could possibly remember. Washington was the perfect neutral ground.

So now, as we are staring 60 in the face from not-so-very far off, we are left to wonder where the time went. Time has been kind to my wife, who wears her 57 years amazingly well, even if she had to beat cancer along the way. Our daughters are now older than we were when we first met so long ago in a Berlin cabaret. All things end, but we are in no rush. Some stops along the way:

1981--somewhere on vacation:


April 10, 1982, posing for wedding photos:


Dallas, 1985:


Washington, 1995:


Germany, 1996 (or so):


Spain, 1998:


Los Angeles, 2005:


Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2007:


Charleston, South Carolina, New Year's Day, 2007:


Washington, 2007:


Prague, 2008:


And onward we go from here--for how long, no one knows. But if it ends tomorrow, no one can take away the times we've had. Like the Dead sang: What a long, strange trip it's been.

[murielm99]

1. Those are wonderful pictures.

Thank you for sharing your pictures and your story.

[DFW]

3. And that's the condensed version!

[yellowdogintexas]

2. I so understand the seems like forever seems like yesterday. We are at 26 years

Congratulations!:party: :party: :party: :party: :party: :party:

[DFW]

4. So you're right behind us

And so you know exactly what I'm talking about :hi:

[Symarip]

5. I needed an uplifting thread

It's great to see two people who, well, look like you two do. :)

By the way, isn't Prague beautiful at night?

[DFW]

8. It is indeed!

Of course, only a thick fog could make Prague less than beautiful,
and then only because you couldn't see anything.

[Auggie]

6. Wonderful photos. Thanks for posting.

And congratulations

[DFW]

7. Thanks!

We thought it right accommodating of the Germans to make our anniversary a holiday!

(This year, anyway)

[Heidi]

9. Congratulations, DFW and Mrs. DFW!

CMW, The Wiley and Excellent Boy Cat Named Ginger, and I are sending y'all a whole raft of good wishes for many more years together. :hug:

[DFW]

12. Grüezi and thanks to all!

We intend to enjoy our day like we should.

[Zomby Woof]

10. Congratulations on many years of happiness!

I believe you have many, many more ahead! :toast:

Great pics!

[DFW]

13. Thanks!

I suppose we have had more of our share of good luck, but we went through some
difficult spots to get here (we didn't know if she was going to survive her
cancer or not), but we're not looking back.

[Blue Diadem]

11. Happy Anniversary to you two!

Lovely pics DFW. You have a beautiful family.

As I was looking at your pictures of you and your wife through the years and thinking of my own 35th anniversary approaching, I couldn't help but be reminded of the Kenny Rogers song "Through the years".

Wishing you many many more years together.

[DFW]

14. 35 !!! Wow, congratulations are due to you as well!!

At 27, we are just pikers!

[Blue Diadem]

21. Thank you.

Best wishes to you and Mrs. DFW.

[SeaLyons]

15. How wonderful....happy anniversary

looks like you two have had a wonderful time along the way. very nice.

here's to the next 27...:toast:

[DFW]

16. That would make us 84

My wife has lots of family members who made it past 90, but I have very few--two great grandmothers
who made it past 90 and one grandfather who made it to 102 with all his marbles intact, but only my
wife's mom, of all four of our parents, made it to 80. My chances don't look too good, but I'm not
going to fret about it beforehand. Like Warren Zevon sang, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

[YDogg]

17. Congratulations ... and here's to many more happy times!

:toast:

[DFW]

19. Thanks, and we'll try for them!

[Dangerously Amused]

18. Sweet post, cool pics. You're right, she is a knockout. :)

Thanks.

[DFW]

20. Good thing our daughters got HER genes!

And good thing for me she is nearsighted! I always wondered how a woman like that, who could have
any guy she wanted, chose to stick with me. But I am not complaining, and I never forget for one
minute how incredibly lucky I have been. She was like winning life's lottery.

[bluesbassman]

22. Congratulations DFW.

Wonderful photo journal of you life together. Wishing you many more happy years.:hi:

[DFW]

27. Thanks Mr. Bassman

"...I'm a bassman, too..."

We'll be trying for them, that's a given.

[OwnedByFerrets]

23. Congratulations!! Great relationships are rare. I am lucky to be in one.

[DFW]

26. It pretty fine, isn't it?

It makes a lot of setbacks seem like very small setbacks when you have a fabulous partner to fall back on.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. What great photos!

Congratulations!

[DFW]

28. Thanks, Lydia!

They don't tell half the story, but I didn't think it was worth an epic saga..

[blondeatlast]

25. I'm so happy for you! Love the pics; may you have many, many more! nt

[DFW]

29. Thanks, we'll be trying for them

My medical history says no, but maybe I can overrule it.

[AwakeAtLast]

30. What a sweet post!

And great pictures, too!

Congratulations - here's to many more happy years together!

:toast:

[DFW]

31. Thanks, Awake!

We'll try, I promise you! :hi:

[sakabatou]

32. Omy my god...

It's Stan Lee!

[DFW]

33. It is indeed. I didn't know if anyone would still recognize him.

Stan has been a friend for years, now. He is in his mid-eighties and is still as sharp
(and funny as hell) as he has ever been.

[sakabatou]

34. Heheh

[Brooklyns_Finest]

67. The One Above All

Stan is the one true god in the Marvel Universe. Wow, I can't believe you know him personally.

[DFW]

68. It was a strange string of circumstances

Some years ago, I was out in L.A. for something totally NOT work-related when a friend who had
known him for a while said I should call him up and take him out to lunch. I said, right, Stan
Lee is just gonna go out and have lunch with someone he has never heard of. My friend said he
would lay the ground work, and when he gave me the go-ahead, I should get in touch with Stan and
set a date. He was as good as his word, and we had a great time. We became friends and have stayed
in touch regularly over the years. I spent some time with him again last summer, and he even suggested
a possible collaboration on a project, even though he couldn't imagine just what yet.

I told him I had to give a humor presentation for a tough crowd at a thing I attend in South Carolina
every New Year's, and was thinking of some re-written Mother Goose Rhymes. He even contributed one for me.
I gave him credit anyway, as this was SO out of character for me:

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To do some things they shouldn't
But when they got
To the perfect spot
He forgot his Viagra, and couldn't

Like I said, even at age 85, he hasn't lost a bit of his wicked sense of humor.

[Haole Girl]

35. Yes, nobody can ever take that away

:-)

[DFW]

36. Nature can

My very witty grandmother turned into a mindless vegetable in the end, which devastated my grandfather,
who had all his marbles right up to age 102. One of his best lines came in the mid sixties when there
was all the talk about the "War on Poverty" and the population explosion. My grandfather chimed in that
he would propose a War on Puberty to stop the copulation explosion. We were all in the car at the time,
and my mom was laughing so hard, she nearly drove the car through the entrance of the FBI building.

But nature has been very kind to Stan indeed. He has never been sick a day in his life, and is in his
office every day on Santa Monica Blvd. And the rule is: unless it's business, YOU have to take HIM to
lunch (he still plays the poor Jewish boy from Brooklyn as a gag). But he has a heart of gold, and
he has one of THE best wits of anyone I have ever met. Just go back and look at some of the lines
Spider-Man has come up through the years, and you'll see what I mean.

[DFW]

62. oops, I thinks I got your meaning wrong

You were referring to the last line of the OP, right?

My mistake, sorry.

By the way, my younger daughter went to HPA and considers herself a kama'aina with haole parents!

[RandomThoughts]

37. Congratulations on the 27 years :)

And great pictures. I also see Clinton in one of those photos. Sounds like you have had an interesting life.

On the topic of Stan Lee, I would guess many of the lines in his comics are inspired, as I believe the stories are themselves, and his heart also shined through on the tv series he did, it was a really refreshing TV show.

[DFW]

38. My father was one of the last fair-minded Washington print journalists

He had friends on both left and right, but never compromised his integrity. In the late sixties, he had two
friends in the Senate named "Bob" with whom he was on a first name basis. One was named Kennedy, the other
was named Dole. Because he was in DC for so long, I got to meet a LOT of his colleagues and acquaintances.
I knew a guy named "Fritz" way before I knew his name was Mondale, and we have known Helen Thomas for more
than four decades. Now that my dad is gone, my brother and I still visit with Helen at her home whenever we
are both in Washington at the same time. We owe my dad a lot, including being introduced to Clinton and Al
Gore a lot earlier than it otherwise would have happened, although many other relationships (such as becoming
friends with Howard Dean) happened independently of outside or family connections. It HAS been an interesting
ride, I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

As for Stan, I guess if you're 85 and just about everything has gone your way (not quite, but mostly), I
would hope there would be no reason to be angry with the world. Stan has been having a good time for many
many decades now, and it shines though in his perpetual good mood and sly sense of humor. Don't EVER let
down your guard when having lunch with him, because he'll slip in a wry comment every time you give him an
opening. He'll also have you ROFL for real. Eat slowly!

[retread]

39. Congratulations to both of you. If you include the 8 years, which you should, it has been nearly

35 years!

[DFW]

40. We sort of do.

We count two anniversaries: one on April 10 and one on July 25, the day in 1974 that we met.

By the time we actually got married, it was little more than paperwork and making all the
relatives happy. My wife's parents in particular were very traditional old-fashioned
people from rural northwestern Germany, a place with many Catholics, where they are/were
(she lost her dad over ten years ago). My immediate superior, who was my best man, privately
told me just before the ceremony "this means nothing to you, does it?" He was right, in a
way. I knew long before the marriage that THIS was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of
my life with. Afterward, at the reception, he told the assembled crowd, "I know many of you
think they are rushing into this," which garnered the biggest laugh of the night. After the
ceremony, my wife joked to me, "well, it's too late now--now I've got you." Funny, I was
about to tell her the same thing.

The paperwork was the only negative aspect. The American end was sort of like the scene in
Alice's Restaurant where Officer Obie began to cry because the blind Justice wasn't going
to look at all his color glossy photographs. We called the American embassy here in Germany
to ask if there were any special documents we would need for a German citizen to marry me in
the United States. They said she needed an "Ehefähigkeitszeugnis (say THAT five times in a row)."
That basically meant a certification that she was indeed single, and therefore eligible to get
married. So we applied for such a document, and the German authorities demanded MY birth certificate.
We asked WTF they needed MY birth certificate for to issue a document that SHE was single. But
they wouldn't issue the document without it, so I got a notarized copy and sent it up. They then
finally issued a jen-oo-wine bona fide German "Ehefähigkeitszeugnis" for the American authorities
to drool over when we got to Washington. We got our blood tests and went over to Arlington (VA)
county courthouse to get the marriage license. I gulped when I had to fill out the place of birth
part for my wife. City? "Quakenbrück." State? "Niedersachsen." We took our place in line. When we
got to the counter, I submitted the blood tests and the marriage license application. My wife held
the precious, all-important Ehefähigkeitszeugnis in her hand. The clerk checked the blood tests,
read through the marriage application, and stopped when she got the city and state of my wife's
birth. "Here we go," I thought. She asked, "it that Germany?" I said yes, it was. She said, "I
thought so." End of story. She never asked us to produce the long fought-over Ehefähigkeitszeugnis
that the American Embassy in Germany said was vital to the whole procedure. So much for bureaucracy.

[NanceGreggs]

41. Congratulations!!!

Just one question, if I may ...

Why is it that Mrs. DFW looks pretty much the same in the first photo as she does in the last?

Has she ever considered getting on-board with this "aging" thing that the rest of us are subject to?

Just wonderin' ...

:shrug:

[DFW]

42. I think she is related to Dorian Gray

She has this thing about aging, and has a very non-conformist streak to her. You how stubborn Germans
can be. Maybe in twenty years or so, she'll listen to any arguments you might want to present. In my
position, I don't dare. I'm only the husband, remember. I am occasionally asked for my opinion as to
whether or not she looks good in something, which is just a tossing me a bone, as the answer is always "yes."

[dana_b]

43. Happy Anniversary!!

it's so good to hear of couples who stay together and love each other even more after that length of time. BTW, your wife is beautiful. She reminds me of Joni Mitchell - who I think is lovely.

Congrats!

[DFW]

47. The time does seem to have melted away

But then I look at our two daughters, and remember that they have to have come from somewhere, and lo and
behold it was from us. My wife has yet to catch on to how good she looks, despite my repeated reminders.

Our elder daughter is the same way. A couple of years ago, we were in New York City, and she went out on
her own at lunch time to pick up something at a drug store. When she got back, she commented that she was
the butt of a joke by some construction workers. We asked what she meant. She said that when she was walking
by the site where they were working, they were on their lunch hour, and when they saw her, they started waving
and calling out "hiya beautiful!!" My daughter thought they were playing a practical joke on her, because she
looked around to see who they were yelling to, and there was nobody there. It never occurred to her that she
was the one they were calling to.

[Schema Thing]

44. Congrats!

A beautiful couple on a beautiful ride on a beautiful planet.

[Kajsa]

45. Congratulations on your anniversary!

Your wife and I are the same age.
Time certainly does fly by.

Your photos are great.
How exciting to travel extensively and meet
President Clinton in person!


You two are a beautiful couple and have spent
many great years together.

:)

Here's to many,many more!

:toast:

[DFW]

55. Thanks, Kajsa!

We'll try!

We're all the same age. 1952 must have been a good year (Nance, note the vintage).

Year of the dragon!

[gardenista]

46. I can't tell you how uplifting your post was for me.

We lost my beloved mom in February. She had 50+ years with my dad, and they were deeply in love to the end, as it looks like you are. He's so grateful for the time they had together, and it gives him such strength.

I love to meet couples like you, and to see reinforced that true love doesn't require a gigantic overblown wedding.

On our wedding day, we did the laundry, went to the courthouse, and had a small party with close family. Then we drove off to Yosemite without reservations. Spent the night in our tiny car in the parking lot in front of the Ahwahnee, and had doritos from the general store for dinner. I wouldn't have traded it for any luxury accommodation.

That willingness to just go for it, and not make a big deal of stuff, has been the hallmark of our happy 12 year marriage. We always meant to have a big party, but never got around to it. Maybe next year...

[DFW]

49. You sound like kindred spirits

Our wedding night was spent in the basement of my parents' house because the guest room is downstairs,
and presented a problem for my wife's parents, as he dad had lost a leg in battle of Stalingrad 40 years
before.

The next night we went out to the movies and left the three sets of parents at my folks' place. It must
have been an awkward night--ma wife's parents spoke only German, my brother's in-laws spoke only Japanese,
and my parents spoke neither!

[gardenista]

54. I bet they could speak one important common language

Love for their great kids!

[DFW]

56. There was a LOT of improvised sign language going on!

[gardenista]

48. Oh! And Happy Anniversary!!!

[DFW]

50. Oh...

And thanks! :-)

[mike_c]

51. wow! that made my day!

What wonderful photos and such a lovely story. Thanks so much!

[DFW]

57. It's probably too much to hope for, but.....

We're hoping the story is only halfway through.

[azmouse]

52. Congrats!

April is a beautiful month for weddings.
My husband and I will be celebrating 22 years on April 25. I can't believe it. Where did the time go?

[DFW]

58. So your special day is right around the corner!

I travel a LOT, so if I miss your anniversary, my congratulations to you two in advance!

As to where the time went--we don't know either. We're organizing a searching party.

[Dystopian]

53. Heartfelt Congratulations...

Your Love Story is beautiful...and so are you. Not to mention how beautiful your wife is.
I can't imagine the life you've lived....
Warms my heart....
I love your tribute to eternal love....
Thank you for sharing the special moments in pictures...

:loveya:
peace~

[DFW]

59. Thanks for that, Dystopian!

The life we've lived may look out of the ordinary if you take a few selected photos,
of which I'm obviously guilty as charged, but most days we get up, eat breakfast, and
rush out to work after too little sleep, just like everyone else.

Waking up to that wonderful smile of hers DOES make it just a little easier to face the
day, though.

[myrna minx]

60. Thank you for sharing your wonderful life with your beautiful wife with us.

You're a beautiful couple. :hug:

[DFW]

61. Thanks, Myrna!

As for sharing my wife, I'm only open to THAT up to a point.....;-)

As long as she is with me, it's beautiful being a part of this couple!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

63. Congrats!

From your pics, it looks as if you were made for each other. You're a beautiful couple.
May you have as much fun for the next 27! :toast:

[DFW]

64. Thanks, I hope so!

I'd say that about 98.5% of the beauty is hers, but she's nearsighted,
and might not yet have noticed, so please don't tell her!

[av8rdave]

65. Great pictures and great story! Congratulations and thanks for posting

[Call Me Wesley]

66. Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

:toast: I hope you had a wonderful day and many more to come! :hi:

Great pics!

[DFW]

69. Danke schön!

We did, and we intend to!

Here's someone else we call Wesley, too:

My wife doesn't really know him much, which is why we didn't include him in
the original anniversary thread.