Anniversary Dinner

Yesterday, September 4, was our forty-eighth wedding anniversary.

Larry got home from jury duty hot and tired. It was much too warm to cook, so we finally decided to repeat our wedding supper.

Just like this year, we were married on the hottest day of 1965 in a church (Marengo Avenue Methodist Church in Alhambra, California) with no air conditioning. The wedding was at eight at night to try to avoid having to serve a meal, small children, and some of the heat. We succeeded on the first two counts...

Four hundred twenty-five people attended a truly memorable service during which my veil kept drooping. But all that mattered was we were finally married.

The day had been really hectic, and neither of us had eaten. We had a cake and punch reception. (Try to get away with that today!) Since we were mere children—I was only one week past my nineteenth birthday, and Larry was twenty-one—and we had to pay for most of the wedding ourselves, this was easier. I worked for the baker, Mr. Brown of Lucille Brown's Bakery, so he gave us the cake as his gift. (It was truly the most beautiful one he ever made.)

Mom had prepared cold cuts and salads back at the house after the service, but we wanted to get on the road to Crestline. (Larry’s folks were members of the old St. Moritz Club, and they rented us a ‘chalet’ for our honeymoon.)

We were driving out the freeway after ten at night when we both realized how hungry we were. We pulled off at Peck Road in El Monte and ate hamburgers at Denny’s. (I was and remain a cheap date!)

So last night, we went to Denny’s again!

Theme Park Junkies

Okay, we are self-confessed theme park junkies. We were two of the many kids who grew up watching the TV show Disneyland, an unabashed infomercial for Walt Disney’s new amusement park being built in Anaheim, CA.

 

We were both children at the time, but we each went to the park (the term ‘theme park’ was yet to come) during its first year of operation.

My grandmother took my mother, brother, and me in August, 1955, one month after opening, for my birthday. None of us knew exactly what to expect, but Ron and I had been well-primed. The place more than lived up to our expectations. Since I was already in love with fairy tales, the magic captured me immediately.

Larry went first on his brother’s birthday the following March and again on his own birthday in April. He loved it as much as I. We discovered our mutual addiction when we were dating, and in fact, attended the very first New Year’s Eve Party at the park.

We continued to go through the years, and I can’t ever recall having anything but a great time.

That’s probably why when Larry was offered a job helping to build the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, Japan, he jumped at the chance. Well, being able to work on Jurassic Park, JAWS and WaterWorld didn’t hurt! The extra bonus was a job for me in Document Control once we arrived in Japan.

During our time there, we made good friends and really got to know the ins and outs of theme park construction. That knowledge merely increased our love for that form of escapist entertainment. We even wrote a book about it: 31 Months in Japan: The Building of a Theme Park.

After we returned to California, our daughter, Kim, began working at Disneyland, so we bought annual passes. We’ve had them nearly every year since.

We recently celebrated our forty-seventh anniversary. Where did we go? To Disney, of course. Although this time we chose Disney’s California Adventure since we hadn’t ridden on two of the new rides in Cars Land. And, once again, we had a ball.

How about you? Do you like theme parks, too?