Looking Back

While my son Jeff was visiting several weeks ago, we sat on the sofa together and leafed through family albums, wedding albums and baby books. We started at the beginning with the September 1960 wedding of his Dad and me. The 8 X 10 photos are in black and white, and show two young people arranged by the photographer into all the typical wedding poses… hands clasped on a Bible, standing together at the altar, cutting the wedding cake, and a mad dash down the steps of the old Methodist Church amid a flurry of rice. I made my own wedding dress… a Vogue creation in satin and Chantilly lace. Flowers were from the garden of a family friend, arranged in baskets by another friend. Grandmother’s church ladies took care of the reception. My parents said I could choose to have them put on the wedding or receive a wedding gift of $100 instead. I chose the cash and paid for the wedding myself. Can you imagine? That was the better deal.

There were more things in the wedding memory book… cards, list of wedding presents, a napkin from the reception, and receipts from the honeymoon. One night at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon cost us the grand total of $11.50… the Benson was Portland’s finest hotel at the time. The piece de resistance though was a cash register receipt from the first trip to the grocery store as newlyweds… a Safeway store in Corvallis, Oregon. The receipt was two-feet long, with 68 items ranging from 11 to 98 cents, and the total came to $23.93. “There’s nothing listed here that’s over a dollar,” Jeff said in amazement.

With the economy in crisis as it is now… and the future in unknown territory, it is nice to remember a simpler time when people lived within their means; when you visited your local bank to get a loan and knew that you would get an honest deal.

… PLM