Fifty Four Years Ago...

This was us, 54 Years Ago....

Lots of fun memories from this day 54 years ago! Hard to believe we have come this far!

Here are a couple of links to some previous posts that have a lot more details about that exciting time in our lives.  You may have already read these in previous years, but I am posting them here again for my own memory's sake. LOL.  Seems the older we get, the more things we need to prompt our memories and save them for "posterity".  

 Post written for our 50th Anniversary

Wedding Memories from 54 years ago

Actually, I am trying to save a lot of my old posts to flash drives so they don't accidentally get lost in cyberspace.  One of our dear blogging friends, Barbara, previously from "Sweet Tea and Sandals", recently accidentally deleted her blog permanently, and with no way to retrieve it she had to start over with a whole new blog.  If you were wondering where she went, you can find her HERE, at "My Journal Memories".  I know she is still trying to reconnect with many of her blogging friends, so pop on over and say hi so she can get you back on her blog list.  And if you didn't know Barbara before, I am certain she is always ready to welcome new friends.

Anyway, when that happened to  Barbara I kind of panicked when I thought about all of the special memories I have tucked away in my blog posts from over the past 12 years. I used to be pretty good about saving them to a word document and then to a flash drive, but I've gotten lax over the past few years and realized there's a lot of stuff in here that I don't want to lose.  So little by little I am working on that project. Mainly I am saving the ones with family history or other special family memories.  If I could afford to print them I would, but with all of the pictures I use in my posts, the cost of printing would be just too much. So I will save them to the flash drives, and maybe some day I will print the most important ones for my family to keep. That is, if the technology doesn't make these flash drives obsolete before that happens.  Like our old VCR tapes...something else I'd like to get copied one of these days.

Lately I've been thinking about all of the old places we have lived in the past 54 years. I mentioned in one of my comments in a previous post that someday I am going to write a book about all of the different places we've lived...but it will be a very BIG book! I've lost count of the actual number of moves we've made over the years, but trust me, it's more than anyone would want to admit to or do over again, that's for certain!

However, in honor of our 54th anniversary, I thought I would share a bit about our very first home together.  Actually, I did write quite a bit about that home in a previous post many years ago: HERE, "Just Happened To Events".  That post is an excerpt from the book that I started to write about our life, entitled, "Giant Leaps of Faith and Other Crazy Moves".  It's never been published and probably never will be, so I can share chapters with you here when the mood strikes me.  If you click on that link and read that post that I wrote during our "Random Journal Days" weekly gathering back in the olden days of blogging, you will learn about our first two special neighbors that we had at our first home.

In these two pictures you see me with Esther in the top picture, who lived across the street from us and was instrumental in leading us to my husband's first teaching job after he graduated college.

We remained good friends with Esther for many years after that. She was one of those most unforgettable characters that God brought into our lives at an early age to help guide us into the path that He had set for us to follow.  If you read that link above you will understand more about it.

In the bottom picture is sweet Mrs. Bell. She lived downstairs below our apartment, and again, she was a very kind and thoughtful neighbor. If you read that link above, you will hear a rather funny story about her and what she did to keep us "entertained" in our first year of marriage.  

The only picture of the outside of our first apartment I have is this one below of my hubby on the day he graduated from college.  We lived upstairs, so our address was the 613 1/2, and Mrs. Bell was in 613.

Here's a couple of pictures of us inside our apartment. The one of John below I took to show that he had a little bit of a "beard". He had actually been sick with the flu for a few days and didn't shave, so this is the only picture I have of him in 54 years of marriage with a little beard. He has always preferred to be clean-shaven, which I appreciate because his beard can be quite prickly! LOL!

Here we are on the left below on our first Christmas together.  And the other two pictures are when his parents and my parents and his younger brother Billy and his Uncle George came to visit us for John's birthday that year. Billy was just about 15 years old and quite the goof ball.  Of course if you read THIS POST last week, you saw a picture of his brother Billy still acting goofy nowadays, 54 years later. Some things never change!! LOL.

Sometimes I like to Google the addresses of old places where we've lived to see what the house might look like now.  So I googled the address for our first apartment, and had quite a surprise...Remember, when we lived there 54 years ago, it was what you would call a "garage apartment". Mrs. Bell lived downstairs in what originally might have been a garage turned into an apartment, and we lived upstairs right above her.  That's all there was...no other apartments or buildings or big home beside it. It was a nice, quiet neighborhood on a brick street.  Well, anyway, here's what is on that same lot today, 54 years later:

The only thing still the same is the brick  street and the address!

To say I was shocked would be quite the understatement!   Quite different from this description I wrote down after talking to our prospective landlord about this apartment 54 years ago:

Yes, you read that right...$100.00 a month is what we paid for that 1 bedroom, 1 bath upstairs apartment.

According to what I read about that new house above, it was built on that lot in 1991, about 22 years after we moved there.  And the current value for that home is over $1,000,000. !!!! Wow!!! But that's Orlando for you...sure couldn't find a sweet little apartment for $100. a month in that town today!!

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane with me as I reflect on our early days of marriage 54 years ago.  I don't know what we are going to be doing today for our actual anniversary...we may go someplace interesting for lunch. It's too hot to go do much outdoors, and we really can't afford any kind of trip overnight anywhere right now...we are saving up for a little trip in the fall for a family reunion.

I Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 

5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 

6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Yes, after 54 years of marriage, I can certainly agree with everything in this passage above from 

I Corinthians 13.  Without love, no marriage can stand the test of time.  We have certainly had our share of troubles and trials and heartaches and disappointments. But we've also had a very large amount of joy and love and so many blessings.  The most important key to our "success" in marriage is that our marriage was built upon the ROCK...Jesus Christ. He is the strong foundation that has held us up through all of our 54 years.  Without Him being the glue that has held us together, I am quite sure we would not have survived the storms of life that came our way.  I give Him the praise and honor and glory for all that He has done for us, even when we disobeyed or tried to go our own way. He never left us and He never will. If I can give one piece of advice to any newly married couple or engaged couple...make sure your marriage is built on the Solid Rock of Jesus Christ. Without Him in your lives you will have a very hard time of surviving.  Be very sure that both of you share in that commitment to Him, or you will have a rough time staying afloat.  I thank God every day for His great love.  Amen.

54 years later. "Life is good." 

John and Pam 2023

Our family in 1980

Scott, Matthew, Benton

Pam and John

Our family in February of 2014...including my mother in law "Nanny", our daughter in law Nicole and grandson Noah.

Our family in 2017, Nicole and Noah, Benton and Rose, Pam, John, and Scott

(Matthew went to heaven in May of 2014, and "Nanny" was in a nursing home until she passed in 2018)

Our family in 2023

Noah and his fiance' Dawn, Pam, Scott, John, Benton and Rose

(Nicole was at her home in Maine when this picture was taken)

Precious memories!

Thank you for visiting with us today for our special day!

May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His Face to shine upon you,

and give you peace.

Amen.