42!

Yesterday was our 42nd anniversary.

It's all hazy now but I think we got engaged after Thanksgiving my senior year at the University of Texas and we married June 18, 1966 after I graduated. Byron had finished his first year of law school. I remember that the Sigma Nus (serenaded me at the Theta house. (They probably don't do that anymore - probably no college kids get engaged anymore).

We met at a match party. That was a party at the fraternity house - and each of the Theta pledges were "matched" with a Sigma Nu. The Theta social chairman and the Sigma Nu social chairman were dating (Cookie Mattox and Will Wills) and they made great matches - at least four couples ended up married (Byron says seven) and we're all still married. (Cookie and Will married other people.)

In those bygone days, the match party was held at the fraternity house (the boys buying the beer since the sorority wasn't allowed to buy it - and most of us were underage, anyway - and the sorority would pay for the live band). This happened every Friday night all Fall. If your date liked you, he invited you to the football game on Saturday. If you didn't like each other, you could spend the evening in the ladies room with your sorority sisters who were in the same boat.

After my classes were over, I didn't bother to participate in graduation, but went home to get married about three weeks later. My mother planned the whole thing. The wedding was at the First Christian Church with ministers from the Christian Church (where Mother and all us kids belonged) and the Episcopal Church, where Daddy belonged.

My mother-in-law hosted the rehearsal dinner at the Holiday Inn (the Pecos Valley Country Club was closed for renovation) and the day of the wedding lunch (none of that "bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony" stuff) was held at Jane and Bruce Hay's. She was Mother's best friend, frequent guest at our kitchen table for a five o'clock Scotch and a wonderful cook.

About four days before the wedding Byron came to Pecos and stayed at the house until he and Daddy got into an argument about displaying the gifts. The gifts were displayed on tables covered with white tablecloths in the upstairs hall and Daddy wanted them all on view. Byron thought some could be boxed up and taken back to Austin with friends so we wouldn't have to move them all after the honeymoon.

Daddy suggested that perhaps Byron should move on over to the motel where his mother and family and friends would be staying.

During the countdown to the wedding, Daddy called it the "possible wedding"; the week before, he called it the "probable wedding"; the day of he called it the "ominent wedding". On the way up the steps to the church he turned to me and said "You can still call this off if you want to."

The reception was held at my parents' house with cake and champagne. In those days people were expected to have eaten dinner before attending a wedding and the reception was mainly dessert. There were little boxes with a small piece of cake, tied with ribbon for guests to take home. (It was a superstition that if you slept with wedding cake under your pillow, you would dream of your future spouse.)

We left the reception very quickly - not even having a dance in the newly created "ball room" which had been the sun room which had been especially decorated for the wedding. We drove away in my Nash Rambler which our friends decorated to the filling station where Byron's car was stashed.

We spent our wedding night in the Sands Motel in Odessa, catching a plane early the next day to New York where we spent a week at the Plaza Hotel. A few years ago the Plaza had a promotion, before they closed for renovation, that invited honeymoon couples to stay there at the same rate as their original stay. I couldn't find it at the time, but came across it later - $32.50 per night.

After 42 years with Byron, three wonderful daughters and four lovely grandchildren - I'm glad that I decided to ignore my father's suggestion to call it off!