Old Enough To Vote

Growing up, the age of 18 was that magic number that gave you all kinds of privileges. Back in the olden days, Ohio had a law that allowed 18 year olds to drink something called 3.2 beer. It was beer with an alcohol content that did not exceed 3.2% by content. Since normal beer was supposed to be somewhere around 7%, you had to drink twice as much. I just spent more time going to the bathroom. At 18, you could also vote and you were considered a legal adult by the powers that be. The most important was viewed as the right to drink. Somewhere in the following years, the legal drinking age went to 21 and 3.2% beer went the way of the passenger pigeon.

Well, this weekend marked my 18th anniversary. There is no magic privilege or right that comes with crossing that threshold. With marriage, your magic numbers seem to be 25 and 50. Your children are supposed to throw a surprise party on both of those occasions as they are the milestones for marriage. I look at it slightly different. My wife is my best friend. Even after 18 years, I would rather spend the day with her than anyone else I know. I have noticed that our conversations are much briefer than they were before we had children. We seem to be able to communicate with much fewer words and just the right look will start either of us smiling or laughing. It is not that we do not have things to talk about. It is that we have settled most of the big issues early on and figured out the best method for the day to day stuff.

We played golf to celebrate our anniversary. It was slightly chilly and windy but sunny. We both played well but as usual, my wife beat me. That is nothing new. I think in the 20 years we have been together, I have beaten her 4 times. We went to dinner at a favorite restaurant Bravo. It is an Italian chain restaurant that opened in Toledo about a year ago. When we lived in Dayton, it was our favorite place to eat. Finally we went to see “Man of the Year” with Robin Williams. It had its funny moments but once was enough. All of the children had plans for Saturday, some of which interfered with our day. We worked around the issues but as our marriage passed that rite of passage age, we celebrated 18 years together. I look forward to 20 years when I plan to take a second honeymoon. It is either back to Vermont to watch the foliage (we did that on our 1st honeymoon) or south to the Mexican Caribbean for some fun in the sun. Wahoo!


Icool

Cobb