When on my 19th birthday, December 22, 1970, I asked Ruth to consider marrying me, she asked when was I thinking the wedding would be. She expected me to say two years, since that’s how far I was from college graduation.

When I said August, she was totally caught off guard. We kept moving the wedding date forward.  We finally settled on March 20. Even then, we considered eloping, but Ruth’s mom had already started wedding planning, and threatened us with bodily harm if we did not go through with the wedding.

Ours was a College Spring Break wedding. The night I married Ruth, I had an F in Calculus II. I finished with a C in that class. I’m still as proud of that C as I am of any A I ever made.