The Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary Book

In July 1965, Gary was a young college student, Nancy had just graduated from high school, Richard was about to be a high school junior and Liz was about to enter primary school. Alma had told her children for years that she wanted a party for her silver wedding anniversary. The children planned a surprise party at the country club and charged it all to the parents (what other choice did they have?) They chose the guest list from the Christmas card list Alma carefully kept in a little notebook. It turns out they invited a few inappropriate guests, but they did their best. There was a fairly big crowd and it must have been quite expensive, but the children never saw the tab. The R.S.V.P.s were sent to Gary’s Standford University postal box and so the surprise was total. The parents were pretty delighted with the whole affair, despite the cost, I guess, because we were in their good graces for weeks afterwards.

As part of the celebration, all the children got together and made an album. Each participated in the production.

Liz is holding a coffee pot here and was called “the coffee pot kid” because at the time she would stare at her own reflection in the stainless steel coffee pot at the breakfast table

These little cartoons refer to family stories and jokes. Nancy had a friend names Julie Lowe, who came to stay with us and the subject of pets came up. Julie had a dog and so did we. Alma knew that feeding fat to humans was not a good idea and she questioned the idea of feeding it to dogs as well. She asked Julie what she thought about it and Julie (who was probably 14 at the time), responded a little bit rudely and sh “of course you give fat to a dog,” became a kind of family phrase. The girl throwing something under the table represents Nancy who once threw a slab of liver on the floor and got in big trouble for it. The alligator with the short tail is an illustration of one of the favorite family jokes:

A guy walks into a bar with a little, yellow, long-nosed, short-legged dog under his arm.

“That’s one ugly dog,” says another patron while petting his Doberman.

“Yeah,” says the guy, “but he’s the meanest thing you’ll ever set eyes on…”

“That so?” says the other patron. “I bet $20 my dog will kick his butt in less than two minutes.”

The guy agrees and they put their dogs face to face, and each gives the command to attack. In the twinkling of an eye, the little yellow dog bites the Doberman in half. The Doberman’s owner is crying and cussing, and screams “What kind of $#%@ dog is this?”

“Well” says the guy, “before I cut off his tail and painted him yellow, he was an alligator.”

Gary once said to Richard, when he was quite small “Don’t get wise bubble eyes, or I’ll knock you down to jelly bean size.”

The “I’m prettier than you are” phrase refers to an incident when Phil and Alma left their three children (Gary 8, Nancy 3 and Richard 2) when they went out of town for about a week. The babysitter was a sour old woman who liked the baby but not the other two so much. Gary and Nancy didn’t like her so well either. At one point Nancy said this sentence to her, which irritated her, no doubt. Gary added
She’s right, you know.” It became a family joke.