Many readers have asked what Darl and I did on our 50th wedding anniversary last August. Well, we went fishing. Right to the same place we went fishing 50 years ago on our honeymoon.

Some friends gave criticism because I didn’t take her to Hawaii or some other famous golden wedding place. And even more complained that we did not have a dinner or rented hall where folks could drop in to extend congratulations.

I thought about some of those things, but each time I mentioned it to Darl, she said a quick “no” to it all. “Let’s go fishing,” she said. So we did.

Fifty years ago, when our money was short and we had only a couple weeks of vacation, we drove to Canada with our suitcases and fishing poles. We camped in a tent, and then spent a few days at a nice resort with a beautiful cabin and three great meals a day (all for $13 a day), and it was a great and memorable time in which we became fellow fishing buddies for the rest of our lives.

Our 50th anniversary found us hooking onto our little travel trailer and heading 400 miles into Canada to a provincial park called Fusimi. We stayed two weeks, caught a lot of fish and got reacquainted around the campfire with a glass of Canadian Club. Special moments.

Fact is, we have done just that for almost every year over the last 15 years. Going fishing together has done a lot to keep us together. She usually out-fishes me and her personality changes each time she gets a big fish on and yells for me to get the net. Because of my vision troubles, I can’t see the fish very well. After a few failed passes with the net, she comes apart. “You net that fish or I’ll throw you overboard,” she blurts.

A couple of years ago, I caught a northern pike 43 inches long and weighing 30 pounds. She netted it on the first try and said, “There, that’s how you net a fish.”

On the 50th, she caught the big ones and I got the booby prize—a pike smaller than the bait it took! I got it off the hook and back into the lake before Darl could get the camera out to record it. Whew! I’d have never lived that down.

If health permits, we will probably go fishing again on the 51st, but we don’t mean to put down the importance of the golden wedding one last August. Nowadays, marriages don’t last long. Nearly one-half of them are failures, and yet we often hear of folks who have been married for more than 75 years. I don’t deny that it takes a lot of work and understanding to keep a marriage going, but I don’t like to hear oldtimers bragging to young folks about how hard they worked at it. Way back then, you were both filled with love and dreams of the future and it was all fueled by hormones. But when it all turns out later to have been a good mixture of two people who have long liked each other, you have probably been more lucky than you were smart, and in ensuing years, it didn’t take that much hard work to make it survive.

Since this column carries my byline, I get to have the last word to my longtime mate. So, I will reprint here a dedication to Darl that I wrote in my latest book. It read:

To my wife, Darl,
If it has not been nearly 50 years of marital bliss, then I sure came mighty close. As most readers know, I have been legally blind for more than 40 years—unable to drive or read printed material. Although she maintained a 27-year career as a teacher, she also raised two wonderful children, Linda and Steve, and served as my loving wife, cab driver and daily reader. How she managed all that remains a mystery. Thus, this book and any other professional notoriety I enjoy is largely of her creation. I may be a man of words, but they cannot describe my gratitude for the love of such a woman.