Thirty-four years ...

April 24th marked the 34th anniversary of Rick and my first date in 1981. I met Rick through a mutual friend during PE class. A few days later he asked me to a local dance for the annual Ojai Tennis Tournament. I was looking for the earliest photographs of us around that time, and came up with this one that was in the Ojai Valley News. Even though we're not pictured together, we were standing next to each other with they were taken. This is probably the earliest picture of us as a couple. A guy from the paper came by on the last day of school and was interviewing students. If you click on the picture below, you should be able to read it better.

So many years later, I just have to laugh at the NOW and Gloria Steinam comment. I realize it's no reflection on her personally, even though she didn't marry until she was sixty-six years old, and sadly that marriage lasted only three years before her husband died. However, since she's been so outspoken on radical feminism and oppressed women, I find this newspaper comment pretty funny today. I've been with the same man for thirty-four years. I met him when I was just sixteen. I'm fifty now. Oppressed is NOT a word I would use to describe myself. And thirty-four years later, I'm still "hanging around with Rick" all the time. Go figure.