I’m grateful for my wife

     In my first column last week, I explained how and why I got into the world of expressing gratitude for my blessings. This week I want to elaborate a little more on how I prepared for my journey of expressing gratitude for the 365 days of 2009. Then you can read my first expression.

     In December of 2008 I decided I really needed to have a plan if I was going to be able to identify 365 “expressions of gratitude” about what I would/should be grateful for in my life. Here is what I came up with:

     STEP 1 – I WOULD IDENTIFY A PERSON, THING, OR EXPERIENCE.

     STEP 2 – THEN I’D WRITE A PARAGRAPH EXPLAINING WHY I WAS GRATEFUL AND HOW THAT PERSON OR THING OR EXPERIENCE HAD ENHANCED MY LIFE IN SOME WAY.

     STEP 3 – I MADE A LIST THAT I COULD USE AS A GUIDE TO MAKE ME THINK OF ALL ASPECTS OF MY LIFE. HERE IS MY LIST:

     • People would be my most important one.

     • Government, laws, court decisions.

     • Organizations.

     • Institutions (church, school, college, hospital, etc.).

     • Words/words of wisdom.

     • Events, experiences.

     • Other.

     I liked my plan, and on Jan. 1, 2009, I was ready to roll. My first expression of gratitude had to be the girl who had been my partner since age 15. Here it is:

     Jan. 1, 2009. I’m grateful for Ruth Ann.

     Ruth Ann has been my wife for 57 years and three months. We were married on June 18, 1960. We had been engaged for one and a half years before that, and we had gone steady for two and a half years before our engagement in December 1958. If you add those together, you get over 61 years that we have been an item.

     We first met in seventh grade when my family moved to Chatfield, Minn., in October 1952. Ruth Ann joined our class a month later when she left her country school and came to school in town. (She was the only kid in her class so her parents decided she needed some competition.) When I first saw her I thought she was a giant. I was little–I was 4’10” and weighed 79 pounds, and she was 5’6” and weighed 120 pounds. Now you know why I thought she was a giant.

     We flirted a little when she went to Bible camp after eighth grade and flirted some more in sophomore biology class, and then the sparks began to fly. At the end of June 1956, she had a picnic at her farm and invited me and two other couples. When the picnic was over, we all got in my dad’s 1955 red and white Plymouth station wagon. I got in the driver’s seat and guess what–she slides in right beside me because in those days, cars had bench seats.

     We went to the outdoor theater in Rochester and about halfway through the movie, my right hand and her left hand somehow found each other and we held hands the rest of the movie. The sparks flew and by the end of July, we decided to “go steady.” I guess that phrase has been replaced by “they are in a relationship.” That meant I had to give her a ring–the only one I had was a cheap one I had won at the Fillmore County Fair. It was so cheap it turned her finger green. Since she didn’t want a green finger, she would wear it as a necklace. The next year she got my class ring and that did not tarnish.

     We have been together ever since that first handhold at the outdoor theater in Rochester in June 1956. Over the years, we had a few bumps in the road, but I’m grateful things have worked out and I’m grateful that Ruth Ann has been my wife, my lover, and my best friend for over 61 years.

     (Ruth Ann and I were blessed with a son and a daughter. I’ll write about them later.)

     In Bungum’s column last week, it stated Ruth Ann was a County Treasurer for 22 years. She was a Deputy County Treasurer.