During the first year of our marriage, my husband and I celebrated our monthly anniversaries with a special dinner out. Now mind you, we were both very recent college graduates and funds were in short supply. In the first few months of our marriage, the only work I was doing was volunteering. But the benefits of Tim’s military career helped us many times to be able to swing a nice dinner out.
In that first year of married life, my husband was in the training program for naval aviators. This meant that we were not in one location for an extended period of time. Our first stop was Naval Air Station Whiting Field. When we arrived in Milton, FL, we were greeted by members of the local Welcome Wagon. The Welcome Wagon was a national organization with local branches whose mission was to welcome newcomers to an area and help them find their way around.
Ladies from the group arrived at our apartment with a basket full of local products, maps, information on local attractions and coupons for area services and restaurants. The restaurant coupons were mostly for buy one meal and get the second one free. So for our first two monthly anniversaries, we dined at establishments in the Milton/Pensacola area that were well represented in the Welcome Wagon basket.
With the next phase of training, we relocated to Corpus Christi, Texas. Once again the ladies of the local Welcome Wagon came ringing our doorbell. The coupons in this basket enabled us to have our monthly dinners during our entire six month stay in Texas. We experienced a few restaurants that specialized in Mexican cuisine. I tried my first sopapillas with a buy one meal get one meal free coupon. We also tried Texas barbecue at a western style restaurant. We even had a meal in a restaurant where our seats overlooked the water. How romantic! And low cost at the same time!
By the time we had been married for eight months, we were on our third move. In August of that year, we found ourselves in San Jose, California. No Welcome Wagon was there to greet us, so we ended up having most of our remaining monthly anniversary dinners at the Officers’ Club on base. Sometimes we had to select evenings when they were running specials, but dine out on our date, we did! Somehow throughout the course of our first year of marriage, we managed to have a special anniversary dinner each month.
Our dinner dates have continued for the past twenty-eight years. We no longer head to a restaurant to celebrate our monthly anniversaries, but we do continue to enjoy our dinner dates. Sometimes we’ll dress elegantly for a fine dining experience. Other times we’ll be casual and have dinner in one of our favorite local diners. On occasion, our dinner date is calling out for pizza and eating by candlelight in our own dining room. But the dinner dates continue.
While the locations have changed, as well as the fare, the one constant about our dinners out is the face that looks back at me from across the table. It is still the face of the most handsome man I have ever met. And wherever we go, there’s still that bit of romance that makes dating my husband something I plan to do for a long time to come.
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