The Car Guy and I recently celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary. If you count this Valentine’s Day, and the ones before we were married, we have participated in Valentine’s Day observations more than 50 times! But 50 is a such a nice round number to talk about, so here are my thoughts about this epic number.
50 is the atomic number of Tin. Tradition says the 50th Wedding Anniversary is all about Gold, but science would suggest tin is more appropriate. Why? Because the most common use of tin is in the production of solder, which is a somewhat liquid metal that holds pieces of metal together. Likewise, 50 years of marriage means something held it together and what better symbol of that than good old tin!
On his 50th wedding anniversary, Henry Ford was asked his formula for a successful married life. He replied that it was the same formula that made his automobile successful: “Stick to one model.”
– Henry Ford –
50 years is – 18,250 days, 438,000 hours or 26,280,000 minutes – an adequate amount of time for us to move into and out of 19 homes in 4 different countries. Equally important to The Car Guy, it was time enough to own 27 cars/trucks that motored into and out of his Garages. (He sincerely regrets selling a few of those vehicles…)
50 is the percent of genetic overlap of a parent and offspring. In our case, that overlap produced 3 wonderful children!
50/50 is often thought of as being the ultimate in equal partnership. Fortunately, our definition of equal is quite flexible. If The Car Guy had been required to change 50 percent of the diapers or clean 50 percent of the toilets; if I had been responsible for doing half of the oil changes in vehicles or fix the leaky toilet valve 50 percent of the time – well, I don’t know if the marriage would have survived…
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.
– Author Unknown –
Looking ahead, our next Anniversary is the 51st. Did you know the Atomic Number 51 is assigned to Antimony? I don’t think Antimony is what is typically thought of as something you give as gifts for this occasion, but I’ll look into that next year.
In the meantime, Happy Valentine’s Day to The Car Guy, to my family, all my friends, and everyone who visits my blog!