It was forty-three years ago;  a warm Saturday evening in El Cajon, California, in a church on the corner of Third and Something.  I wore the suit the Chief bought me for graduation three years earlier;  MamaCharlie wore a dress my grandma put together.  Charlie stood as my Best Man (not the Charlie I married, but the one who had been my best friend for about five years).  MamaCharlie's folks and two brothers had driven over from Phoenix.  My folks were there.  I honestly don't remember who else came.  I think my Grandma was there;  Charlie's (not the one I married) girlfriend, Linda;  maybe some others.   I don't have any clear memories of faces.  I remember the little pastor;  I never met him prior to planning on the event.  We selected his church not out of any denominational allegience but because it was close to the house and looked nice.  I barely remember the inside of the chapel. We stood around afterwards and took pictures in the foyer so the pictures remind me of how that looked.  It is not so much the faded memories of age as it is the selective memories of what was important to me.  I recall every expression, every glance, every glittery-eyed smile that MamaCharlie threw my way as the rest of the world went about the ceremony and festivities.  I remember vividly the sweetness of the first kiss as man and wife.  
There was a small reception at the house afterwards and I know that a lot of my family were there.  There were some neat presents and goodies and a priceless picture snapped as I was swatting a moth away from my new bride.  The finished product looks like I am squaring off at her and she is flinching back.  We still have one or two of those gifts, too.  A forty-three-year-old Corning Ware Casserole dish that last week made a marvelous pot roast.  Again, a lot of people and faces but the memories that stick are the glances we made at each other as the impatience to get the heck out of there and get on with it grew.  My friends knew better than to put any soap on my GTO's windows or tie any shoes or cans to the bumper...and none of them were even close to game enough to keep up as we sped off to the very best of all of our wedding presents...my Uncle Omar (yes, that is his name) gave us a weekend in the Town and Country Hotel in Mission Valley.  Funny...I don't remember much about the drive to the hotel, either.
Tonight we had a simple celebration;  MamaCharlie and I went to a very nice Japanese restaurant and had our dinner fried up at our table and spent the rest of the evening with some of our TV favorites.  Maybe that doesn't sound like much of a celebration to you, but it is enough for me.  See, for a lot of our married life, we were separated by wars, deployments, exercises, duties, life's little emergencies, delayed travel, and other people's demands on our time.  When I retired from the Army, MamaCharlie asked me to promise just one thing...we would have no more separations.  For more than twenty years she was the one left holding the diapers while I was the one keeping the world safe for democracy.  She deserves that promise...she earned it.  So the sofa with MamaCharlie next to me is about the most exciting thing in my life, and it really always has been.  She has put up with a lot to stay with me.  I owe her.
Sometimes, in the face of failing marriages and tumultuous relationships all around us, I almost feel guilty.  Well, maybe not guilty but certainly very lucky.  MamaCharlie and I grew together, we "married young" and matured together as a team...no...as one.  There has never been any question in my mind about who was the most important person in her life and I hope she can say the same.  She is still my very best friend and the one and only love of my life.  
So there it is:  October 7th, 1967, in El Cajon...the journey began and we are still here, still in love, still together, and feeling like forty-three years is a pretty good start.  We might make it after all.