I courted my wife off-and-on for seven years. Rose Marie and I were married on February 9, 1963. Nine months later we had a child, a son. After that my wife was unable to bear any more children so we adopted a girl. She was about two years older than our son. Then, we adopted a boy who was two years younger than that.

The girl had a tough time as a youngster. When she got into her late thirties she took her own life. Our son has turned out fine. He is a very fine carpenter in home builder down in the Carmel, California area. He gets paid $65.00 an hour doing carpentry. His name is Shawn.

My wife and I have had met at a wedding in 1956. We courted off and on for six or seven years until we finally settled down and did it. We’re both very happy that we did.

When I met her initially she was working for the United States army as one of the ladies who coordinates programs and activities for service people. She had been doing that for a number of years before we met but when we get married she dropped out of it.

She asked me to marry her. She got tired of waiting for me to ask. Like a fool I told her that I wanted to think it over. Maybe I shouldn’t have been but I was a little bit surprised by the question. We had distanced ourselves right about that time. Shortly after we distanced ourselves from one another she moved in across the street from me!

I remember thinking to myself that this was trouble. This wouldn’t work itself out. I used to have girlfriends up to my place occasionally and, well, that went out the door!

Well it turned out to be fine. We got back together and got married within a year. We had around 42 years of marriage. She got very ill with throat cancer that came on very suddenly. Within two weeks she was gone.

After he did the initial examination of her the doctor said down with me and talked with me about her throat cancer. I asked how much time she had and he said: “maximum, two weeks.”

That was it, she was gone. It was a little rough. But I think I’ve made a pretty good recovery and gone on with my life. She passed away about nine or ten years ago, but it may the only half that. I can’t really remember.

As a guy I just didn’t expect this. My dad had gone at 61, and my sister didn’t live to 40. I figured that I would be finished at around 60 or 65. But I am 74 now and still going.

I had been a runner for 40 or 45 years. I stopped running in the year 2000 and continued walking. I had something like 47,000 miles of running when I quit.

I had run on the track team during high school and college; I wasn’t very good on either one.