The Sixty Six Blog's Inspiration

Bob and Betty Hutton

1945-2011

Last May I got the opportunity to go back east for a wedding and while I was excited for that it also gave me the chance to visit my family and most importantly my grandparents. My Pop-pop was on a roller coaster for almost 6 years and it was looking to be the last time I was going to be able to spend time with him. While I was down at their house in Ocean City, MD my Grammie and I went through a huge bag of photos that she had from her childhood and over her entire life. I came across this one and it just brings a tear to my eye everytime I think about them together. If you are a girl then I'm sure that the movie "The Notebook" is one of your all time favorite romances. I am lucky enough to know a couple that depicts that lifetime and that idea of love.

They met through friends when my Grammie was just 14years old and my pop-pop was 17. The dated for 3 years and then the war came (WWII). My pop-pop enlisted voluntarally against his parents wishes became a soilder under the 350th Infantry 88th Division, Anti-Tank Company in Africa and Italy. To this day my grammie has letters that he wrote to her during that time. When he returned injured from stepping on a land mind my Grammie helped nurse him back to health. They later married when she was just 18 years old. Until this last summer they had been married for 66 years when he passed July 27th, 2011.

I suppose that I am a bit of a romantic, but how can you not be when you hear true storys that are beyond what people think marriage is today. Now, I know that every marriage has its low points but the possibility of making it through those low points is inspiring. My pop-pop was a good man, he even told me once that on his way home on Fridays from working maintenance at the hospital he would stop at a corner street a pay a nickel to buy my grammie flowers. He did that every Friday.

So here's to sixty six years of love, family, and friends and here's to hoping you will continue to read this blog which will be about life and what I make of it.

Sixty Six years