Dear Mom and Dad, as you are most likely aware, on December 18th your holy matrimony odometer will roll over to 49. 49-years! Many…many…many people haven’t even been on this earth for as long as you two have been married to each other, the same each other… the entire 49-years. No pauses…no breaks…a full 49-year streak of uninterrupted togetherness since 1971.

A December wedding in upstate North Dakota is risky enough by today’s standards, but wayyyy back in 1971, prior to indoor plumbing and with burn barrels filled with dried manure the only indoor heat source, the moxie of you two youngsters is commendable. Questionable, but commendable.

As the eldest of your four offspring, I would like to suggest that those last three were completely unnecessary. I have such fond memories of my first 18-months of life, just us three kids living it up. Elvis, Faron Young, and Charlie Pride spinning on the Hi-Fi, Tang for breakfast, T.V. dinners for lunch, Banquet Chicken for supper, Vantage Menthols for dessert…man we were livin'. But you just couldn’t leave well enough alone. So it goes.

Suddenly there were more of us. More than was economically feasible to feed so extravagantly on a GTA Second-Man salary and sewing leisure suits for local fashion trend setters. Then, as if it weren’t enough that Elvis up and died, “they” said it wasn’t advisable to enjoy Vantage Menthols seated comfortably on your davenport while your children fought about which board game to fight over.

Not stopping there, “they” had the audacity to put laws into place making it illegal for you to get at least one of those bickering bread burners out of your hair for a few minutes to peddle their banana bike up to the Red Owl with a note for a fresh pack of Vantage Menthols. “Not Vantage 100s, Vantage Menthols…with the green colored package…not the blue…and don’t crush them.”

I believe I’m justified in blaming this downward spiral of our quality of living on those siblings you so flippantly introduced to the mix, without even once consulting me on the matter. We could have passed on the 1978 Ford Econoline Van and got something sporty, something with a little speed and sass.

Something like that 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. The car you drove Mom to the hospital in to give birth to me. Remember that car Dad? Us three could still be drag racing Canadians for cash, leaving them all in a cloud of burnt rubber and Vantage Menthol second-hand smoke. But no.

Here you are 49-years later. Your four, following your lead, went and fell in love, and filled your lives with even more. It’s all your fault, I hope you’re proud of yourselves. Us 15 are certainly proud of you, proud to call you Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. Proud of the people you are, the love you share, the life you live, and the many ways you give of yourselves.

Enjoy your day, just as you have the previous 17,885.