My Favorite Year

A friend recently loaned me this DVD. It is an oldie but a goodie that takes place in my heyday (the fifties aned sixties); however, I must confess I fell asleep. :(

But it did get me to thinking about my favorite year. At 65 I have lots to choose from; sixty-five to be exact.

I decided my favorite year was my senior year in high school. It was 1961, Rock and Roll was in its heyday; I was free,white and 17 with my own beautiful 1958 Fairlane 500. (That was the year Ford changed the model in the middle of the year so mine was already a classic.) I got my car as a surprise gift the summer before my senior year. My brother drove it down to my parents beach house...... I was ecstatic. I slept in it the first night; and spent the days swatting flies off it til the new wore off.

I met a boy in Senior English who finally asked me out (after months of shameless flirting on my part). We went to the National Theater to see a Shakesperean play (don't remember which) and Helen Hayes starred in it. It was supposed to be her last theatrical performance, but I later read she did perform again. (For those under 65....Helen Hayes' son is/was Larry Hagman the actor who played JR on Dallas.) Check her out on Wikipedia so you will be in the know about her many accomplishments.

Anyway Mark and I became a couple which is fun your senior year. Dances, proms, drag races,...and going to a horse race in West Virginia with his SCOUT TROOP for heaven sake. We also canoed down the Potomac and almost got arrested for prowling around Rosevelt Island where they were getting ready to construct the Rosevelt Bridge.

Mark had no money to speak of. He did have a job as a prescription deliverer for a local drugstore. He used this to fund the purchase of a 1950 Ford at a car lot's Washington's Birthday Sale.....for....drum roll....$50. The paint was worn off.... it looked almost like camo when camo wasn't cool. And best of all the passenger seat had a broken spring so it wouldn't sit up......this of course necessitated me sitting almost in his lap and shifting the gears (ohhh that grinding noise tore him up)>

Needless to say my parents were not thrilled for me to leave my beautiful car home to ride to school in this wreck. Mark had as we say today no people skills....or at least no adult people skills....another mark against him with my parents. He came to pick me up; I ran and answered the door, he said, "goodnight Mrs. Gates" and off we went like the proverbial bat.

I think you can understand though why I would pick my senior year as ONE of my TWO favorite years.

The other year was 1966; the year I married my husband after a whirlwind 8 month courtship.

We met in July, engaged in November and married in March (with no buns in the oven).

Between November and December I dated Curtis every night and we often wrote (and mailed) each other letters during the day. We had it bad, folks! When school let out in December, I was finished, a 3 and a half year graduate and I went home to plan our wedding.

I also bullied Curtis long distance to get his parent's old (we are talking 1866) house that had been most recently used to store tobacco ready for Princess Do......that would be me!

The weather was freezing that winter and there was no heat in the house but that was NO EXCUSE for not painting those huge rooms with the 12 foot ceilings.....EVERY day.

He MANNED UP big time and got that sucker ready by the time we got "home" from our wedding in Washington. Yes, Sir, he carried me over that threshold and we promptly used the only piece of furniture we owned....our king size four poster bed.

I remember that Spring as the best one ever. I wasn't working; he was. I got up and cooked his breakfast; he left for work and I wrote Thank You Notes until he got back. Oh, and unpacked gifts and, covered the kitchen shelves and all those domestic duties. Then I got out my Betty Crocker Cooking For Two Cookbook and whisked up some delightful (????) meal that he declared nightly was "the best I ever ate!"

So those are my two favorite years....lets hear about yours!