Fifty Fabulous Things
Fifty Fabulous Things
By Foy Valentine
"Whatsoever things are…lovely…think on these things" Philippians 4:8
Having dilly dallied, procrastinated, sublimated, postponed, and otherwise chomped at the bits as long as I could stand it, I proposed marriage to Mary Louise on our second date. (I`ve always had this problem with making up my mind. A character flaw, I suppose. Or maybe a defective gene.) After two years, she quickly accepted. On May 6, 1947 we were married.
Late in the year as we approached 1997, the year of our Fiftieth Anniversary, our darling daughters began to make dire and dreadful noises. They thought of celebrating this big event with a rip-roaring gala. We reacted violently. They offered us a splendid reception. We couldn`t see it. They asked us to consider a big to-do at church. We demurred.
On our own initiative late that year, we devised our very own Grand Scheme to celebrate this Fiftieth Anniversary. We decided to do Fifty Fabulous Things. And thereby hangs this tale. Please draw up a chair and come in close so we can share some of the highlights from those Fifty Fabulous Things which are all now a fait accompli (as are we, for all practical purposes.)
The Faberge Collection. We caught that show in New Orleans. Mary Louise wanted to see the do-dads and I wanted to see what another French Huguenot had wrought, he as an enterprising operator in the shadow of the Kremlin which my own Huguenot forebears were hewing out a new life on the wild frontier in America. Although I really hadn`t planned to, I enjoyed the display. Mary Louise loved it. We had a great hotel room looking down on a fine bend in the mighty Mississippi. Then there were eminently memorable meals at Brennans and at the Commander`s Palace which topped that cake.
The 150th Anniversary Celebration of the First Baptist Church of Gonzales, Texas. This experience can only be described as glorious. From beginning to end. Mary Louise and I had lived there in their parsonage for three years, 1950-1953, for what we now perceive to have been the three happiest years of our lives. The old friends, evidences of God`s grace, precious memories, warm hospitality, outstanding programs, and Pastor Brad Russell`s generous invitation for me to preach the Anniversary Sermon combined to make that a Five Star Happening.
The Fixing of Our Front Yard. This was the special gift of our children who gave us a landscape beautification face-lift for the small front yard of our ten-year-old zero-lot line house, complete with splendid stone work, pink azaleas, beautiful shrubs, and hundreds upon hundreds of seasonal flowers. Somewhat breathtaking.
The Reunion of Our Clan. We gathered at the river, at Red River, New Mexico, to be exact, where we have a homemade red fir cabin which I built in 1958 with two carpenters and my own two cotton-picking hands in two weeks (nobody can figure how we spent that much time on it), where the altitude is 9500 feet, the distance to the trout stream is ten feet, the temperature at night is nearly always in the 30`s even in August, the 1946 Willys Jeep always starts, good pinon fires blaze cheerily every morning and every night, and the columbines bloom profusely among the blue spruce and aspen trees. There our whole family, every last one of them, came in for a couple of weeks of noisy, happy, hungry, hyper togetherness. There were white water raftings, jeep trips, and climbs to Wheeler Peak (the highest mountain in New Mexico) and to Gold Hill (at timberline and right above Goose Lake). There were picnics, cookouts, hikes into the Rio Grande Box Canyon, birthday celebrations, homemade ice cream feasts, after-supper wild animal safaris, and I don`t know what all. (It all runs together when you`re having that much fun.) This was the most fantastic of our Fifty Fabulous Things. It is preserved for us in the outstanding family portraits and pictures taken in our front yard by professional photographer, par excellence, Carl Brown. He took 89 marvelous pictures all of which were good and the best of which are now in an oversize montage in one frame hanging on our bedroom wall to our daily delight.
Williamsburg. Who could gild this lily? Mary Louise and I reveled in the Inn itself, its wonderful food, beautiful music, superior staff, excellent accommodations, homey ambiance, and Colonial atmosphere. We liked it more than any place we`ve ever been. Now, we can think of no place we had rather return to or go to again if we could do it all over. Williamsburg is the creme de la creme of our Fifty Fabulous Things.
England. Having accumulated more than 200,000 Frequent Flyer miles, we flew first class and free from Dallas to London and back in September. Four days in London were highlighted by Oliver (the best play we`ve seen in years), visits with old friends, and an unhurried visit to the British Museum. Four days in the Cotswolds pleasured us with thatch roofed houses, delightful English gardens, and pleasant outings. Several days in Wales at Lord Ashley`s Jacobean era (1652) small hotel in a room decorated by Laura Ashley herself, overlooking the River Wye were highlighted by sumptuous meals and vividly memorable walks in their fruited and flowering gardens. Several days in the Lake District in a small hotel overlooking Lake Windermere were–what can I say?–fabulous. (Oh, England is a perfect place to lose pounds — pounds sterling, that is.)
There was much, much more. Our minds race back to bluebonnets in the Texas Hill Country, the Fantastics, Bed and Breakfasts, our cousin`s Sixtieth Wedding Anniversary Celebration in their sweet potato curing barn at Edgewood, raspberry preserve making, the good news that our oldest grandchild had been admitted to start to Baylor in the next fall, paying off our house mortgage, the happy completion of negotiations for the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, uncounted encounters with hot cornbread and banana puddings, the full color of Virginia`s autumn foliage, and some 207 games of Scrabble including weekly knock-down-and-drag-outs with old friends Darold and Elizabeth Morgan.
You get the drift. We liked it. And, we commend some such splendid foolishness to any and all who can screw their courage to the sticking point and do it.
The golden Anniversary Year for Mary Louise and me is now spent. Our energy is spent. Our money is spent. And we ourselves are pooped but proud. The experience has been "altogether lovely" and we now tiredly but happily "think on these things."
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