You are each being handed a closed brown paper bag. If you would please hold onto your bags, unopened until we all have them in our hands together at the same time, it would be much appreciated.

A majority of the fun in marriage, or life for that matter, is not knowing what lies ahead, and the anticipation and excitement of what is hidden and unknown in the future. At the beginning of any marriage, of any relationship, there is the promise and the hopes of the treasures hidden within. The excitement and newness of it all. Just as each of you are uncertain right now, what is actually inside of your individual bags, and you are all wondering what is this woman doing? We all respond to things differently. Some of you might wonder with excitement and anticipation of what I'm going to do, this could be fun. Some of you might think this is really different or unique for an anniversary party, or some might even think this is really stupid. Maybe some people might not even care. But each of you here today are here because you do care! You care, and love our parents, June and Lou, who have achieved this wonderful event of being married for 50 years.  
 

Viewing the paper bag in front of you as representing my parents marriage and life together, lets all open them at once and see a few of the symbolic items inside that make me personally think of what I have known of their 50 years together.. Please, only take out one item at a time, as I ask you to take it out.

Lets start with taking out the RING!  
In your bag the ring looks like a candy diamond on a binky. When my parents got married they exchanged wedding vows as well as wedding rings.  Those rings have been a symbol to both of my parents, of their love for each other and of their unending commitment to those vows they made to each other 50 years ago. Many people don't think much about their wedding rings as anything more than a piece of jewelry, or metal, but for my parents that is just not the case! 

Although it's never really been talked about, I have been personally present when my father has literally fought the doctors or nurses before going into surgery, because he refused to take off his wedding ring. Surgery or not. That ring means more to him than any possession he has. He simply was not going to allow them to take it off or to take it away! I happened to overhear him telling the nurse or doctor that he has NEVER had that ring off and they were not going to take it off now either. The deep meaning and symbolism that Daddy has given to that ring over the years, and to his personal commitment and love for my mother and their marriage has been precious to see! Most of the time, rather than fight him about it, the nurses would just give up and cover it with special tape and gauze.  Even when the ring became too small over the years, for the size of his finger had gotten bigger, and it had to be cut so he wouldn't cut off the circulation.  Mom even bought him a new one, but he still wears the original one. 

Seeing that type of stand from your father, even when he doesn't realize you are viewing it, says a lot to a child about what the true meaning of marriage means and the seriousness with which he takes his vow to her and before God. We, and even they, might laugh about it today, but don't think for one second that that kind of reaction, by him, doesn't hide itself in the very deepest recesses of my mothers heart and soul, to solidify the fact that she is loved, and very deeply loved by him. Situations like that are the fiber of strength in a marriage when other times make you really doubt. 

In today's busy complicated world I view people every day running around looking for what they call, "happiness," but I believe real happiness in life is in having Joy from within and having true victory in your character and in your relationships rather than trying to have that supposed unattainable "feeling" of happiness.  

In viewing my parents marriage over the years I realize that it is not perfect, nor is anyone's,  but it has ultimately had success, and victory, through their difficulties.! Victory is commitment, being a keeper of your word, truly being there for the other spouse and not running off when the going gets rough or unpleasant. I have observed this kind of commitment to marriage by both of my parents for each other, and it creates deep realization of what it means to really be there for someone in spite of adversity.  
Now let's go into your bags again and take out the Candy Kiss.  

Now I can't confirm that that study is accurate or that the results they claim are true but I can show proof many times over that my parents were very successful in the kissing department and started producing my wonderful family of sisters that I am incredibly thankful for to this day! June Elizabeth, came along while we lived in San Leandro and I was 5 years old at the time. Her hair was wonderfully red and she was the apple of his eye and that has not changed to this very day! Dad and Mom had neighborhood friends that they used to party with, and Dad even blew up a few garbage cans in the backyard for one 4th of July. I remember the can flying way up in the air and coming back down. Actually I remember a number of things going up in the air with him…… I wonder if that started his love for flying things? Or maybe that really goes back to his service days in the Navy.  

Anyway, lets reach in the bag again and take out the necklace 

Shortly after moving into the new home only a few blocks away on Larkspur CT., Mom gave birth to sister number three, Shirley Alice, who was also a beautiful redhead. There was only a little over a years difference between Junie and Shirley.  Shirley was born with one layer of skin on her whole body and many times she hurt a great deal in just wetting her diapers, but Mom would hang in there and lovingly care for her with tenderness and patience, and allowed me to care for her with oversight and help. There was also the time that Shirley got mad and decided that she was going to run away from home. They frantically looked for hours, just to have the police tell them to look underneath her bed where she had snuck back in and fallen asleep, causing my parents the desire to kill her just after hugging and kissing her to death. 

Almost immediately, after delivering Shirley, Mom was pregnant again and along came number four, Kathleen. As a matter of fact for one day in November, the 19th, they would both be the same age and the next day Shirley would become a year older. Kathy was a precious addition to our family and looked the most like our Daddy, with brown hair and that sheepish grin. Shirley and Kathy roomed together in our 3 bedroom, one bath house. It was full to over flowing!  There couldn't possibly be room for one more person! 
 

But God had different plans and when I was 15 years old, my mother got pregnant with our baby sister Nancy Lou. This couldn't be!!! Kissing again??? Or could it be those little sperm just crawling across the bed while Mom and Dad just laid there sleeping? Huh Junie?  If any of you have any questions about that one, just ask her.

Everyone of those beads on that necklace you are holding in your hands has wonderfully sweet memories for each of us, that can be recalled when we sit around and think and talk about our growing up years, or our parents love and involvement in our lives, along with the special memories we have of neighbors, friends, and relatives. As a matter of fact, every single one of you here today have a very special place on the love beads of our families lives and we hope you spend time while you are here today, recalling and sharing with us and others around you, some of those special memories you have, that we might not even know about, and then continue to share them for many more years to come in the future. 

Memories. Oh sweet memories. Memories of the neighborhood men building our float entry for the city parade one summer. The women planning our outfits, and other things, while they had their "coffee clutches" each morning, playing cards and talking, between Monday's laundry  and Tuesday's ironing, with their hair up in pins and rollers.  The women always seemed to make it home in time to have dinner on the table when the husbands came home from work, that is if they didn't have graveyard shift, or swing duty, that night.  There were barbecue's, camping trips, church activities and youth groups to attend. Choir practices, music lessons, babysitting the neighbors kids so the parents could all go out dancing or to the movies.  There was the neighborhood attempt to make homemade root beer that tasted way too much like rubbing alcohol or moonshine from the south. Family trips up to Oregon to see Grandma and the whole family up there. Cousins throwing huge banana slugs at each other and getting into terrible trouble and pain as the results of stirring tree branches in a bees nest and then running. Trying to cook orange slices on a children's play stove. Picking strawberries and green beans to earn money for school and fun. What about pizza parties at Aunt and Uncles homes and holidays at Grandma Barry's house? Homemade balsa wood airplanes that took forever to make and then would crash and break apart just to be rebuilt again after a much too short flight. Going up in the real thing and flying to Redding just for lunch. 
Now go into your bag again and take out the poker chip.  
The woman had their coffee clutches, church events, driving the kids everywhere and the men had their fishing trips, Boy Scout trips, and camping events.  Since I really couldn't find any fish to put in here, I figured that a poker chip would do to represent all these things, and of course the long hours of playing cards, telling jokes, and hanging out at the airport, in planes, or on boats. The very special relationships that my father has built over the years with Louie J., George down the street, and many other men whom I don't even know, is a beautiful testimony to that fact that men can be close and experience very deep relationships with other men and still be "Honchos." The close relationships that my Dad has with his sons in law and his grandsons. The incredible story of my fathers false teeth embedded in a sandwich somewhere at the bottom of the lake, maybe being worn by a fish itself. Talk about a FISH story?! 

So many many special memories and individuals to thank God for, and especially each of you here, but most importantly we're thankful for our parents!!! As Bob Hope sings, "Thanks for the Memories".  
Now take out the little water guns. 
Not all of the memories we've experienced have been pleasant ones though. Sometimes we just don't feel like cleaning our rooms, or taking the garbage out. Sometimes our communication is not always the best and there are hurt feelings among family members. Maybe long standing misunderstandings have driven a wedge between friends and siblings or children's and friend's spouses, there's a chasm that just can't seem to be repaired.  Sometimes you get angry and you just feel like shooting 'em. (With water guns anyway. Maybe a pie in the face, which we have seen, or the good 'ole dunking in a water machine. Sometimes it's for fun and sometimes we worry that we could be serious in our play or thoughts.) There was the time when Nancy burned down the kitchen and in panic of what was happening and what Dad would do, she called my ex-husband Max at our home in Hayward to find out what to do as the house was literally burning down around her. What was he going to do from down there Nancy? Didn't think of calling the fire department? Or 911?  You could have certainly used the water gun filled with baking soda then, instead of the buckets of water you tried to use to put the grease fire out with. 

Then there were the times when phone calls came in the middle of the night with someone in trouble. How about party hoping when being turned into the police and being caught by them, hiding between two garbage cans after jumping a 6 foot fence you never thought you could possibly get over.  I heard the story. You were afraid that Dad was literally going to kill you, but when he walked into Juvenile Hall to bring you home, he just said, "Do you need wings to fly you out of here?" And he has always been our wings. 
I'm sure, No I Know, there are probably even other events such as those that neither parent even knows about to this day. That if known, they would both want to shoot us. The times when mother was the protector and covered us with her warm loving wings, and quietly sent us to our rooms. Or when the big things happened and Mom would fall apart and Daddy understood and either made light of the situation or forgave the unpardonable and saved us from near disaster or huge embarrassment and possible required life-long restrictions or sentences. 

I heard a story about a man who had been married for over thirty years. Returning home from work one evening, he found his wife packing. "What in the world are you doing?" he asked. "I can't handle it anymore!" she cried. "We've done nothing but fight, argue, complain, and bicker at each other.  I've decided to leave."  The man stood in shock and bewilderment as his wife walked out of the house – out of his life.  Suddenly, he dashed to the bedroom and pulled a suitcase down from the closet self.  Running outside, he yelled to his wife, "I can't handle it anymore, either.  Wait for me, and I'll go with you." This has been my parents way of handling there difficulties as well……"June, I'll come with you."   They've always gone through it TOGETHER!!! 

In spite of the pain, and feeling of hopelessness that sometimes is experienced by us individually and by the sea of humanity, we still need each other and we still need to reach out to those who are hurting and we need to reach out to others when we are hurting ourselves. Healing needs to take place. And my parents have always been there. 

Reach into your bags now and pull out the gold coin that represents money.  
It is something that we all need to acquire and use to live on. I have learned over the years that where money is concerned, no matter how much you have, it is never quite enough, and it can't provide the answers to your deepest questions of loneliness or of why, when bad things happen to you or your closest loved ones. 

There are those who receive money for writing their thoughts and ideas down and sharing them. Some of those that have received some amount of fame and riches for their knowledge and statements are people like these.: 

Victor Hugo who said, "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves." 

Von Hender said, "The roots of the deepest love die in the heart if not tenderly cherished." 

Edna St. Vincent Millay  said, "'Tis not love's going hurts my days, but that it went in little ways." 

Katherine Anne Porter said, "Love must be learned, and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction, but wants only to be provoked." 

My parents, to the best of my knowledge, have never received money for the teachings they have given, or for the knowledge that they have imparted to the numerous people here in this room today, or many numerous others throughout their lives that could not be here with us, but I have watched and observed the love and wisdom they have been giving over these many years with no desire for repayment or acknowledgement for themselves. I've spent these 50 years watching these two people give of themselves, their finances, their love and support to anyone who needed it, whom God brought into their sphere of influence, or into their lives. 

Sometimes life takes a turn for the dark side, sometimes our loved ones, even our children, like Shirley are killed or die and we don't understand why. Our best friends loose their family member too. Maybe we will never know why, not on this side of Eternity.  Our parents have shown us that commitment and love is very hard to do some times and especially during those times when you have just had it with others, had it with ourselves, and basically just had it with life, but their message is that you never give up! And that there is an answer even if we might not know what it is at the current time.  They have never claimed to have all of the answers. But they have ALWAYS been there to love and to listen.  Without ever mentioning it, or maybe not even realizing it, they understand that "Love" is a verb. It is active. Love is something that you do. It is not something that happens to you. True love and commitment are something you do long past the time that the "feeling" leaves you to do it. Newness and warm-fuzzes soon wear off of the new relationship or job, whatever it may be,  but a man and woman who are committed to each other, and with God's help will stand the test of time. And my parents have done that.  

I wonder if each of you, with me, will reach into your bag and get the balloon out and blow it up in celebration of this wonderful and happy event and place it on the table in front of you. Then take the last item in your bag, the pen, and write down on the papers on your tables some memories of your special times with them, so that they can be reminded long after we leave here today, of the impact that their lives have meant to each of us here at this celebration.  

While we are getting the cake ready for serving and the sparkly for the toast, could each of you use that time to write your memories and congratulations on paper for them to keep.  Our whole family thanks you for attending this celebration today. Please enjoy the remainder of our afternoon together.