Special Edition … Mike and Cyndy Celebrate 51st

Silverback Mike and Silverbelle Cyndy are celebrating their 51st year of marital bliss today!!

Cyndy and I had known each other from Church. I was even an altar boy for her Grandparents’ / Marion and Joe’s 50^th wedding anniversary mass.

We had some mutual neighborhood friends.

There would be informal group meet ups , and hang outs (not hook-ups) all very innocent “folk song sing -a- long “ home parties –really no drinking ,”hanky Panky” etc. (That came later…)

Our first date was 7/12/66 ,a Boston Pops Esplanade concert along with my Mom and Dad sister Mary, maybe brothers Bill and Bernie …and that was the beginning…

I’d row down in my little boat from Peterson Road and pick Cyndy up at the Shoreside beach.  We’d row around the Bay, talk, laugh and smooch. One time Lois was waiting for Cyndy to come in to take care of Robbie so she could go to her waitress job. We had been clowning around in the boat and it capsized. Cyndy had street clothes on and got soaked. We righted the boat and bailed it out and had to row around until her hair and clothes dried, so we were late coming in. Mrs. Roche /Lois greeted us with “You 2 always go overboard!” and she was right. And in some ways we have always tended to go overboard.

Mr. Roche/Bob would say with a little worry during our first summer ,“You 2 are together morning, noon and night“ -and we were , and have mostly always been,and still are.

*The Lunar Landing and Woodstock were in the summer of ’69. We did not get to either one ,but much more important for us was our wedding 12/28/69.

3 days after Christmas-what a Christmas surprise for our parents!  The “have a blast at the repast” reception invite we had thought was funny, but Cyndy’s parents asked “What would Aunt Bertha think? “Actually we thought she’d be OK with it as she and Slicky along with Marion and Joe had roared around on their motorcycles with sidecars in the early 1920’s. We changed that part then and included it this time.

You may remember our wedding was at the student chapel at Boston College with about 200 family and friends looking on, many maybe with the words of the Chuck Berry song in their minds – 

“It Was a Teenage Wedding “ ….

It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well.

You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle.

And now the young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell.

“C’est la vie”, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

Fr. Gene Boyle, who not too long before took us on CYO ski trips, officiated.  He was 15 minutes late! Cyndy in her wedding gown from cousin  Bev had to go to bathroom in boy’s dorm. It  turnedd out Fr. Boyle had run out of gas on the way and had to run up Chesnut Hill to get to the chapel. During his homily he started to laugh, he had quite the giggle (maybe he was high) and we were afraid he would not stop. Nancy , and I played guitar, Cyndy and I sang.There were 10 bridesmaids and 10 ushers. Odur wedding photo looked like a small high school prom picture .

That first night of our honeymoon at the Copley Plaza Boston about 10 of our pals joined us for pizza in the Bridal Suite . My folks offered to send us to Disney World, but we declined and instead, borrowing a car from generous and sympathetic Aunt Niddy and Uncle Jimmy and we drove to Hyannis and spent 3 days at the Harvest House Motel. We ventured out  to Johnny Yee’s Oriental Restaurant and Night Club (we had a coupon) Then the next 4 days we celebrated with many of our friends at Bev Roper’s Dad’s summer house in Plymouth.

And from there it’s been an amazing 50 years of us, Mike  & Cyndy, Cyndy & Mike and  Joe-  achievements, adventures, family and friends.

 And now we are the “old folks.”

C’est la vie…. what a wonderful life!