Pearl Harbour Day

December 7^th in our house was known as “Pearl Harbour Day, also Mom and Dad’s Anniversary” – in that order.  My father used to make such a point of it that my mother felt insulted!  It was Dad’s sense of humour.

            I think my parents were one of the happiest, most in love couple that I have ever been acquainted with.  When we were growing up I never heard my parents quarrel or even disagree.  Not to say that they didn’t, but we were never aware of it, discussion was behind closed doors.  I do remember when I was about eleven or twelve my father getting angry with my mother about his socks not being darned.  For some reason he lost his temper and he dumped his sock drawer out on the floor.  I just remember being very shocked by this show of temper towards my mother because it had never happened before!  It’s the only time I ever remember a disagreement between my parents while I was growing up.

            I remember all of us kids collecting money to buy our parents their silver wedding anniversary gift.  We decided to get them a silver coffee set and the look of surprise on their faces when they saw the gift was something to remember.  Anniversaries other than the 25^th were held by my parents to be private between couples so we didn’t usually give them cards or celebrate the anniversary.

            I remember one anniversary when I was an adult, I asked Dad to tell how he met my mother (even though I had heard it a dozen times before) and he told how he thought she was the most exotically beautiful woman he had ever seen.  He said that he was the luckiest man on earth to be able to marry the woman he loved.  Just after he said that he happened to glance over at Mom who had her feet up on the new coffee table.  He became incensed and raised his voice to her.  Then he looked at me and I couldn’t resist.

            “I’m sure happy to see how much you are still in love.”

            He laughed and looked foolish and then apologized to my mother.  As he got older my father could be quite volatile but he never lost his sense of humour especially when the joke was on him.

            Happy Anniversary Mummy!