Thankfully I was never very good at math.
Posted by Ron

OK, I don’t really remember all of these years flying by but they certainly have.  I leave tomorrow to return to my “ancestral” home of Kenova, WV.  Why?  To attend my 50th high school reunion.  50th!  The last one I attended was the 10th and that seemed to be just a few years ago. This week Gayle I were at  a private dance lesson.  I never danced when I was in high school.  So I decided to change that for my reunion.  Our lovely teacher  could not believe I was old enough to be attending the 50th anniversary of my graduation from high school.  It was funny to watch her add up the numbers in her head.  I know I can barely add them myself anymore!  I can only thank her for noticing what seems obvious to me.  I’m too young to be attending a 50th anything!  Well, they say 60 is the new 40.  I hope that’s true.  Does that make 70 the new 50?  We’ll see in a couple of years.

There are a lot of numbers in that first paragraph.  Back to the real math, however.  Gayle is almost 15 years younger than me.  Why else would we be writing a May-December blog?  Here’s the frightening part!  As I was walking across the stage in that dark old auditorium at C-K High School, Gayle was not quite 4 years old!  Do the math, people!  That is definitely scarey!  So let’s check some chronological high points, keeping in mind the 15 year difference in our ages never changes.

1960 – I graduate from high school.  Gayle is being spoiled by her doting parents in Chicago.

1969 –   I graduate from college and have three children.  Gayle is still in Chicago and will be 12 in a few months.

1972 – Gayle’s dad has passed away at the age of 54 (less than two weeks age difference between him and her mother.)  Gayle and Goldie move to Dallas from Chicago.  I have just joined Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh, PA and am well on my way to a career in oil.  Gayle will soon be 15.

1981 – I move to Dallas and meet Gayle at the oil company where we both now work.  She is married and will soon be 24.  It was instant dislike on her part, by the way.  After all, I was “replacing” the boss they all loved.

1986 – In the years since 1981, I moved to Kansas City and a new oil company, left that company, and returned to Dallas.  It is November and Gayle and I have reconnected and are now getting married.  She must have overcome her dislike of me, although sometimes I’m not positive about that!

Now, skip forward to today.  June 20, 2010.  It’s almost exactly 50 years since I walked across that high school stage and Gayle and I will soon be married 24 years.  That’s another amazing mathematical fact since those years also seem to have been a blur.  I’m preparing to reunite with people I haven’t seen for 40 or 50 years.  I believe Gayle will be a surprise to them.  As I look at her sometimes she surprises me.  How on earth could I be lucky enough, and justify, being married to a woman who was 3 and a half years old when I last saw many of the people who will attend the reunion?  Like I said, I was lucky!  We waited until the age difference was no longer an issue (to us at least) and here we are, almost 24 years later.

Stay tuned. We will be posting and photo blogging as we walk down this long memory lane.  There will also be an intermediate stop in Kentucky to visit with 2 of our 4 kids and 8 of our 13 grandkids.  Aren’t numbers wonderful?