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Show a 1 RJhen the honeymoon is over the answer, read this from a father to 7 message thought-provokin- g his only uittm what then? For daughter. "1- O - ft Dear Helen: When the telegram cameyour mother and I were overjoyed. YouTengagement is the best 1 I . t , , 1 i. : the t v T7 -'- ..' 5 ..V'" 3J ?f ." iJ J I suppose we are! I laughed when you said it, because I remembered saying the same thing to my parents. But when you get right down to it, fashions in love never change. I suspect Adam and Eve themselves had an urgent message for Cain on the eve of his marriage. So be patient with your aging father! I imagine you and Carl feel that yours is the You always said we were - " 7 Rev. Mr. Parkinson, for instance? Would you like to wear grandma's wedding dress? The announcements, invitations anon for the trivia! But this letter can't wait. It is being written while you're still in the East, because so many things are going through our minds. I r fora long time. We will start taking care of the details for the wedding as soon as you decide on the date. (We're sentimental, I guess, but Fall weddings are our favorites . . . particularly September 19th.) Mother will write you a long letter about all the little things. Do you want us to talk to news we've had Tr. , ' y ,1 .mi i. old-fashion- ed! perfect match. I hope it is. Fm not sure I believe in perfection anymore, but certainly Mother and I felt that way about ourselves. Life plays a lot of tricks on people, Helen, and you've got to build marriage out of sterner stuff than dreams. I've often thought Romeo and Juliet couldn't have made the grade. What would have happened if they had lived to have kids with colic? If the maid had quit? Or if old man Montague had lost his money? I'm not sure Juliet would have been so fetching hanging over the balcony at six in the morning with 50 years of wrinkles on her brow. I guess what Fm saying is that fiction writers have done a bang-u- p job of describing love, the puppy sort: first date, first kiss, brawn meets beauty, and life is. perfect ad infinitum.- Few of them have written, and almost nobody has read, the section where the poetry stops and the prose begins. And, you know, marriage is really prose the lives of two people. Remember .our -- family joke about things that are O.O.T.W? When you get right down to it, romance and courtship are "out of this world." Marriage isn't! Marriage is part and parcel of reality! I - .W.. 3- - ' . Jf 7 day-by-d- ay - Ithink Moerlwou honeymoon was over the first morning she climbed out of bed (hair mussed and sleepy-eyeto discover that there was neither milk in the refrigerator nor shirts in the drawer. Six months later there was no fooling either of us. Hard times began and I was jobless for d) FAMILY WEEKLY MAGAZINE JUNE 19, 1955 |