Speaking of inflation

Tonight, I was sorting through old bills--really old--like over 60 year old invoices and cancelled checks. Fuel oil, lumber, paint, furniture, taxes, insurance. Then I came across a cancelled check for a restaurant dated Sept. 11, 1961, our first anniversary. I remember it well. I was 8.5 months pregnant and could barely sit close enough to the table to eat. I was wearing my one nice outfit, a light brown 2 piece with a white fluffy blouse. But the check was for $7.00. I thought that couldn't be right, so I ran it through an inflation calculator (Federal Reserve). $7.00 in 1961 came to $70.04 in 2023, for 900.4% inflation. To double check I used a U.S. CPI inflation calculator, but it wouldn't do March 2023, so I had to use December 2022, which was $69.25.  Close enough.

We’re the mop up crew

In adult Sunday school class at Upper Arlington Lutheran Church yesterday Dave told us a vivid story of how we are to defeat Satan. He said his father was in the Battle of the Bulge, the greatest and longest battle of WWII in the dead of winter with terrible losses on both sides. His father told him that although the allies won, those who survived the battle still had to contend with the dangerous mop up in each village they passed through. And that's what we have to do. Christ has won the battle, but we have to do the mop up. That's a paraphrase of course, and don't ask about the sermon because I can only handle one good story a day.

Well, actually I remember one other. Our pastor, Steve Turnbull, told us during the 9:00 traditional service his 20th wedding anniversary is this week. I looked around the sanctuary at all the gray heads--at least for one couple I think it's 75, and some celebrating in the 50s and 60s. Many have grandchildren older than our pastor. We were probably all thinking--"you babies."

Fifty nine years ago today

 

 

Tonight we're going out for dinner with neighbors Jerry and Joan who will be married 60 years tomorrow.  119 years.

An anniversary celebration--sort of

Our condo association had its fall picnic Sunday evening on the grounds and I announced that we and our neighbors were celebrating our anniversaries on Monday and Tuesday for a total of 115 years.  We’d gone out on Friday at the Rusty Bucket for dinner together.  When I told the waitress she looked at me strangely, and said, "Anniversary of what?"

But the fun part was we have new residents who had moved in during July, so we’d never met.  He’s the new director of the school of music at OSU. They are from Texas, but natives of Iowa and met in high school (one of the questions on the quiz).  When we’d finished eating and playing our games, a group of men singing OSU stuff like Carmen Ohio and Hand on Sloopy walked up to our group—it was about 1/3 of the men’s glee club.  Wonderful voices. Their director was a friend of our new neighbors and did lots of inside jokes and stories.   It wasn’t for us, and it was all planned, but it sure was fun.

 

Monday Memories--Aunt Muriel September 2002

From a letter.  "Aunt Muriel called twice this month to wish us a Happy Anniversary and also on my birthday.  I said something about my last letter, but she didn’t receive it for two weeks.  I looked back in the computer, and I’d written it Sept. 4.  Even allowing that maybe it sat a day or two, it seems even by pony express it should’ve made it to Illinois by the 11th.  I said to Bob that sometimes I don’t know how she stays so perky.  She no longer has parents, husband or siblings, and most of her contemporaries have passed away. I think she and Mom lived next door to each other for 40 years, and as a teenager she lived with my parents.  I was the one to tell her of the death of her last surviving cousin, making her the only surviving cousin out of 28.  Fortunately Diane and Frank live close by--I think they visit almost every week-end.  She is really wonderful to her mother.  Just a rock."

Happy 69th anniversary to the Bushes

She said she married the first man she kissed.

They set the record in 2000 when they surpassed John and Abigail Adams’ 54-year union—now they’ve extended that.

http://youngcons.com/the-longest-presidential-marriage-in-us-history-celebrates-their-69th-anniversary/

The romance began when the two met during a Christmas dance at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., back when the future president was 16 years old. The two were engaged a year and a half later, right before President Bush shipped out overseas to fight in World War II as a naval pilot.

A few years later, in Sept. 1944, Bush was shot down and nearly killed during a mission over the Pacific, which resulted in his being sent back home in time for Christmas. Soon after, Bush and the then Barbara Pierce were married in Rye, N.Y. on Jan. 6, 1945. They would have six children, including future President George W. Bush.

We're at an age

when instead of weddings, we're attending the 50th anniversary parties.

We didn't know them when they got married, but here we are with the happy couple, 50 years later.

Friday Family Photo

Tonight we're going out with our daughter and son-in-law to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary. I've never seen a prettier bride, nor had more fun at a party! For the first and only time I had all my own family here in Columbus; we had a fabulous reception and wonderful wedding breakfast the next day. It was just lots of fun.



Saying their vows

My brother, niece, two sisters, great-nephew, me and Mom

Aside: Wedding dresses with some coverage are much prettier and more graceful than strapless or slinky-slip styles with body parts falling out.

468 The September 11 Anniversary

September 11, 1960 

It is our 44th wedding anniversary. For our 40th, we went to Illinois and worshipped in the Church of the Brethren where we were married. At my father’s home we hosted a brunch for the dwindling group of relatives and friends who still live there. I was on vacation that September, due to retire from Ohio State on October 1 and running out the clock on my vacation time.

We laughed about what an unusual anniversary it was--we'd spent the week-end in lumber stores and paint shops helping my Dad fix up the Lustron he bought after my mother died. And I always say "we" although only my husband did the exhausting work. I just cooked and cleaned, using ingenuity since Dad thought no one would visit after Mom died and had disposed of most of the cooking utensils and had only 2 plates and flatware settings.

Yes, we thought it an odd anniversary. Little did we know that the next one, September 11, 2001, would be so different, no one would forget it. I watched the re-cap/memorial on CNN that was apparently put together for the 2002 anniversary (I‘m guessing from the copyright date). Although it brought back a lot of horrifying memories, I also saw many things I hadn’t seen before, such as recollections of the press core that was with President Bush on that day and footage of the minutes and hours immediately following the news. He definitely has a stunned look on his face as he sits with the children and you can almost see him composing words of comfort and rallying points--which he then did effortlessly before he rushed to his plane to go to an underground site for a strategy meeting. Hardly a word was different than what he says today.

As I’ve watched Al Gore implode over the last four years from a capable, honest statesman in Clinton’s shadow who won the 2000 popular vote but not the electoral vote into a bitter, hysterical enemy of the administration, I wonder if he could have possibly shown the strength, endurance and steadfastness President Bush has shown, or would he have collapsed under the weight and pressure?