Front Porch: Happily ever after, in a blink of an eye, Stefanie Pettit writes

This is a milestone month for Bruce and me. It was in July 50 years ago that we said “I do” to one another on a very hot day in Miami.

When I look at pictures from that day, I wonder at the naked optimism of that couple who had no idea of the joys, sorrows, surprises and simply the life that was ahead.

It was during the Vietnam War. Bruce was in the Air Force, stationed in, as my family called it, Spo-kayne, way on the other side of the country, where none of them had ever been. We’d be living not quite equidistant between his family (Eagle River, Alaska) and mine, and he could get shipped overseas any time – and indeed, it turned out that he was, twice.

We had no family, no friends awaiting us here. It was just us. We were unfazed. We could handle anything. It was the great adventure. And we made a good life here. I’d say “I do” again and leap blindly into the future with this same man any time. I truly would.

We were an unlikely pair. Bruce grew up in pre-statehood Alaska, hunting and commercial fishing and racing sled dogs. I lived my early years in New York City and then Miami. I knew about traffic, congestion, Broadway theater and big league sports. I got to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play at Ebbetts Field on Pee Wee Reese Day in 1957; I saw Carol Channing in “Hello Dolly,” and I can still recall the amazement of seeing the night sky simulated at the world-famous Hayden Planetarium.

Bruce saw the night sky up close and personal as he took his dogs out for night runs, with illumination provided by the actual Northern Lights. As a teenager he gutted a moose he shot and strapped the spine to his Trapper Nelson pack to carry it down to a float plane, one of many trips from kill site to lake so the meat could be flown back to town. He checked fish nets in the challenging tides of Cook Inlet, learning the valuable lesson of always having a coffee can on hand so as to be able to bail like crazy when caulking starts popping out of the dory.

Again, very different growing-up experiences. But only in setting. We both had parents who were married to one another until they died, who taught us to work hard and responsibly by their examples and who took care of their families, including parents and siblings, when there was need.

Bruce decided that he’d either take his savings and go commercial fishing or maybe apply to one college to see if he could get in. He aimed at the University of Florida because it would be different from anything he knew. He got in, and there we met.

He said he spotted me on an orientation weekend in August. I had come up from Miami, where I was teaching swimming at summer camp, and he was working on campus painting dorm rooms. He said he hoped he’d find me again when classes started.

Turns out, he did. We both auditioned for a play, and we both got roles. By then, I had noticed him, too, and that was the beginning. I was 17, and he was 19.

I was committed to getting my college degree and, even when he enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, I remained behind at the UF. For the 18 months before we married, we only saw each other twice – once when he came to Miami on leave and once when I came to Spokane and we got engaged.

I met his parents for the first time – though we had talked on the phone many times – two days before the wedding. My mother pretty much planned the whole event, as I was finishing up in Gainesville, which was really fine with me. I was an odd bride anyhow, not that caught up in the wedding as an event, but rather focused on the marriage to come. My matron of honor was in Europe. The groom came from Spokane, the best man from Eagle River, one bridesmaid from New York and two from Miami. Bless my mother, she was a master organizer and coordinator.

And so, Bruce and Stefanie got married. An eye blink later and it’s 2017.

We’ll be spending our 50th anniversary, just the two of us, on the Oregon Coast. Our sons live on opposite sides of the world, so for a variety of reasons, a formal family celebration isn’t going to happen. We do things with our sons in other ways and at other times, so we’re fine with that.

Besides, the focus still isn’t on the event. It’s still on the marriage. And walking hand-in-hand on the beach in the evening, where we can be amazed by the night sky together – well, that will be just about perfect, thank you.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by e-mail at upwindsailor@comcast.net.