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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Milestone stirs fond memories By HANK HENRY Nora and I will celebrate our 45th anniversary this week, so weddings and anniversaries are on our minds. Sunday's Mail Tribune always devotes a page to local residents' weddings and significant anniversaries. Readers usually get to see a picture of the newlyweds and two pictures of the anniversary couples -- one shows them the way they looked on their wedding day, the other shows them today. Nora and I have noticed how much the couples change between the wedding picture and the anniversary photos. The picture 25 or 50 years ago shows two happy people who don't look particularly alike, but the anniversary picture invariably shows a couple who look a lot more like each other, almost as if they were brother and sister. A couple of weeks ago, that wedding page had almost as many anniversary notes as wedding announcements. The anniversary announcements included four couples who had each been married for 50 years and one pair who had been together as man and wife for 60 years. Think of it -- 60 years! The radio network newscaster Paul Harvey has a running feature in which he congratulates the couples married the longest that day. I don't know the longest-married couple he has found, but he has saluted many for being married more that 70 years. For our 45th anniversary, which falls on Sunday, July 18, we are going to return to Klamath Falls and attend the morning service at the church where we were married. We are not going to make a big deal about the event, but we will have time to remember who we were back then and reflect on who we are now -- after all those years have passed. Speaking of weddings, the most unusual one that Nora and I ever attended happened almost seven years ago when our son, Joe, married his bride, Karen. You have to hear a story first to understand what made it different. Nora and I have never had an automatic dishwasher. We began having people over for Sunday dinner when we settled in Medford, and I decided that it wasn't fair for Nora to cook dinner and do the dishes, so I volunteered to wash the Sunday dishes. Sometimes the guests would hang around after dinner, and Nora would entertain them in our living room while I did the dishes. After several guests asked about how this custom originated, I made up an answer. "Back when were married," I said, "the minister asked me if I would love, honor and cherish Nora -- and do the Sunday dishes. I've been doing them ever since." This was always good for a chuckle or two, and it explained why I was in the kitchen, so I made it a part of my "After Sunday Dinner Act." When Joe and Karen exchanged their wedding vows, the minister turned to him and said, "Do you promise to love, honor and cherish her -- and do the Sunday dishes?" There was an audible gasp in the church, followed by lots of laughter. Joe had convinced the minister to make that little change in the ceremony because he knew it would have special meaning for us. After Nora and I had been married a while, she told me there was one thing she missed at our wedding: Nobody had scribbled "Just Married" in soap on our getaway car, or tied tin cans to the bumper to make our car rattle down the road. Being a stuffy 31-year-old then, I probably thought I was too mature for such nonsense. Nora still regrets not having a decorated getaway car and not getting chased by the members of our wedding party. So we made a pact. On July 18th, 2004 -- our 50th anniversary -- we will drive a car that proclaims "Just Married 50 Years" in soapy script. And several strings of noisy tin cans will be tied to the bumper. And that's where you readers come in. If you are still around here on July 18, 2004, we'll be happy to have you join our little anniversary caravan. You'll be a part of the wedding party (50 years late) and you'll have to honk the horn and yell out the car windows as we drive. We'll form up near the "Y" on Court Street, proceed down Central to Riverside, and then back to our starting place. Mark the date somewhere, July 18, 2004. We'll see you then. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA