47 and counting . . .
A lot happened in 1978. The Camp David Accords were signed bringing peace between Egypt and Israel. Women were integrated into the regular Army. The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was introduced to the world. Kentucky defeated Duke to become the National Champion in collegiate basketball.
Grease and Saturday Night Live were movies everyone lined up to see. Laverne and Shirley was the #1 ranked television show. The first cell phone, an event that would eventually change the world, was released. People wore bell-bottoms and tie-dyed shirts.
Two people, who had first met in the seventh grade sitting together at a drafting table in an Algebra class, got married. It may not have been the biggest event in 1978, but it was certainly the biggest event in my life.
Mary Lou Ponder was the only adolescent Ponder I had ever met in my life, other than my own siblings. It was not a common name in Southeast Alabama. In fact, Mary Lou’s family and my family were the only two Ponder families around in that area. Her father was Van Ponder, and my father was Dan Ponder.
That common thread led us to meet and gave us enough common interest to quickly become friends. That friendship continued throughout high school and into college. I attended Auburn and Mary Lou found her way to Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia.
We dated other people during our college years but eventually found that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Mary Lou spent her Junior year at the University of Reading, England. We could not afford to call each other, and the internet was still years away. Our only alternative was to write letters. And so, we did.
Putting our feelings into written words opened our hearts, I suppose. Eleven months later, as Mary Lou was preparing to return home, I told one of my fraternity brothers that she was the person I was going to marry. I just had not told her that, yet.
Upon her return, and after a quick courtship in person, Mary Lou decided to transfer to Auburn for our Senior year. That was not an easy decision for her, as she had grown up in an Alabama Crimson Tide family. It took a while, but in the fourth football game of the year, she uttered her first “War Eagle”. She hasn’t stopped since.
42 years after we married, we returned to the place we first fell in love. We spent a wonderful four decades in Southwest Georgia, raised two daughters and lived life to the fullest.
After retiring, we find ourselves living another life. We enjoy living in a college town, attending multiple sporting events, eating at world class restaurants, and watching wonderful performances at the Gouge Performing Arts Center.
In this sixth year of my retirement, we continue to pursue our greatest passion which is travel the world while we are able. In the next three months we plan to visit Spain twice, Egypt, Greece, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland. As wonderful as this all sounds, it could not have happened without this amazing lady agreeing to become my wife. I give her all the glory and fully understand that she is the better part of this partnership. You cannot be married for 47 years without bumps along the road.
Some 350 years ago, John Ponder left his farm where Heathrow Airport in London now stands. He had two sons, James and John, who each planted seeds for a long family tree. Ten generations later, two of their offspring found themselves in an Algebra class in Dothan, Alabama.
You might call it fate, friendship, or love. Perhaps it is all the above and more. Regardless, I was blessed to marry the love of my life in 1978 and to be further blessed by being able to say that after all this time, I love her more now than ever.
47 years and counting. I continue to believe the best is yet to come. As long as I have Mary Lou walking by my side, it will all be good.
o0o
Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]