Daisies.
White Daisies, to be exact.
No, not to mark Paul McCartney's 77th birthday. Sir Paul is still rocking all these years later.
And not to mark the momentous occasion of Sally Ride becoming the first woman in space.
Yes, that prompted a Ride, Sally Ride! Daily Times front page headline.
June 18, 1983.
A lot of important things have happened on this date.
But none of them are on my mind today. Insted I'm focusing on white daisies, which my wife carried in a bouquet as she walked down the aisle - toward me!
Exactly 36 years ago.
I'm still trying to get my hands around the fact that I have been married for 36 years.
Or, to be more accurate, that my long-suffering wife is still here.
This one is pretty simple.
I arrived at the Daily Times in June 1982. I got married a year later, in June 1983.
My wife and I were a newspaper couple from the start.
We met at The Record in Coatesville. She worked in advertising; I was in news.
To get to the composing room where the newspaper was "pasted up" each day before it went to the press, you had to walk through the advertising department.
My wife says the first time she saw me walk through her department, she said to herself, 'That's the man I'm going to marry.'
Maybe it was the spongy green pants, yellow brocaid shirt and clogs I was wearing.
The truth is, I'm not sure what she saw in me.
I was broke. Nobody goes into the newspaper racket to get rich. Just ask my wife.
I would stop at her house for dinner once a week, and her mom would load me down with enough food to last the rest of the week.
When she first visited my apartment and opened the refrigerator, she recoiled at the hot dogs - and not much else - that was inside. I assured her they would be fine once you rinsed them off. We ordered out.
When I arrived at the Daily Times, it was like I had died and gone to heaven. The pay was infinitely better.
The hours? Well, let's just say it's one of the few things about this business that have not changed. You don't work by a clock. You just work according to the news.
That means you work nights. You work weekends. You work holidays. There are a lot of missed family outings. A lot of interrupted dinners.
For some reason she has stayed through all that.
Through two kids. Through two college educations. Through one law school. Through two weddings.
And this summer we will celebrate one more first - first-time grandparents. In fact, we'll do it twice. Our son and his wife are expecting twins.
I will never be able to repay her for sticking with me all these years.
All I can say is this.
She is without question the best "news" that has ever happened to me.
36 years!
I still don't believe it.
She's a Beatles nut. So I guess it's appropriate that we got married on Paul McCartney's birthday.
In September I will turn 64.
There is one question I don't have to ask.
Yes, I'm pretty sure she will still love me when I'm 64.
She hasn't kicked me to the curb yet.
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