Category: 50th anniversary

Our 50th Anti-Versary

by Dave Williams

August 21, 2021

50 years ago today I got married. We were both barely 20.

Five years later we had a son. Five years after that we got divorced.

Today is our 50th anti-versary. That’s the term I invented a few years after we split up when the emotional angst was mostly behind me and I realized something I still think was pretty insightful:

Our marriage didn’t fail, it just ended.

Now, 50 years later I’m proud to say that my high school sweetheart is still my close friend.  So is her husband, and they share a happy friendship with my wife of 33 years.

We’ve all shared the best of life over the past several decades: kids, grandkids, a wonderful daughter-in-law and her loving family, holiday gatherings and a lot of happy memories made of special events and activities.

Jeremy & Emily’s wedding, 1997. The kids pledged their eternal love as John and I sealed our family ties.
L-R: Emily’s parents, Gloria and George, Karen, Emily, Jeremy, John, CarolAnn, me.

My wives, former and current, have spent days together shopping and taking the grandsons to Disneyland. This past June my ex and her hubby joined us for a weekend road trip celebrating CarolAnn’s and my anniversary.

Some people think this is highly unusual if not downright weird. But I ask you, how do you throw away 50 years of love and respect out of spite? Why would you do that?

The four of us are separately happy together.

Karen and I learned to keep the good times and dump the bad.

So, happy anti-versary, Karen. Give John a hug for CarolAnn and me.

And thanks, for everything.

Big round numbers

June 13, 2019

Highlands High School, Sacramento, 1969

A couple of days ago marked the 50th anniversary of my graduation from Highlands High School outside of Sacramento. A few days later I began my radio career.

50 years. It’s a stunning number. And that was quite a week, as I recall.

June 10, 1969 was a Tuesday. School was out and for some three or four hundred of us assembled in the football stadium the entire world of opportunities was laid at our feet.

I gave one of the two student commencement speeches that day. I waxed eloquently and metaphorically about those opportunities and warned my classmates, “You must be quick to grab the world by the tail (dramatic pause)…or be left holding the shattered fragments of a Crystal Dream.”

Our parents and teachers applauded my youthful wisdom. My classmates drank from hidden flasks, fired off a couple of illegal bottle rockets and laughed like hell.

One guy in the front row flashed me his junk under his graduation robe.

I said goodbye to my childhood that day with a handful of close friends who are still close and the girl who would become my wife.

Then 50 years slipped away.

KLIF, Dallas, 2019

In our fascination with big, round numbers we look back on our lives and try to find meaning in the journey.  We measure ourselves, comparing then and now.

I’ve been anticipating this big round number for quite awhile and now that it has arrived I’m surprised to learn that it’s not that big a deal except for two things:

I’m alive and happy.

Next stop, the big, round 7-0.