I met my best friend when I was about fifteen years old and in high school, not as a Boy Friend - but merely as a friend. Such a good friend, in fact, that I kept setting him up with some of my girlfriends since I had a steady bf at the time but who had graduated from hs the year before and was in the military.

Needless to say, lots of things a girl would like a date for in her h s senior year and John became my go-to senior date guy and we, all three, were okay with that. As J’s and my friendship grew and we all grew up and started to realize some of our life plans and goals were changing, the relationships changed, too. John and I first met in 1962, became engaged in 1965 and have been married since 1966 - definitely the best decision I ever made in my life.

Love! Passion! Romance! They’re all wonderful attributes and necessary to a relationship but that Friends part - to me, anyway, is the thing that will carry you through all kinds of trials. Well, that along with him learning that magical and all important phrase - “Yes, Dear......” very early on ..... .

Soon come 53 years and if the good Lord’s willing, many more to follow. Such a lucky woman am I.