On our 46th, remembering anniversary celebrations with Joanna through the years 
by Bill Jones

(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 14 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.)

Joanna and I celebrated 44 wedding anniversaries before her passing in February 2021. Today is our 46th . . .  only, she is no longer here to celebrate with me. But I know she is nearby, for the places that separate Earth from Heaven tend to be very thin at times. (“Simply put,” writes author Todd Thorpe, “a thin place is where the veil between this world and the eternal world seems to disappear. Like walking between two worlds.” – from his book Thin Places: Where Heaven and Earth Collide)

1976: Wedding present from Susie & Cary Wood

We usually celebrated by my taking her to a favorite restaurant for a nice dinner. Two of her/our favorites, both of which were frequent anniversary venues for us, were Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Three Forks. For what turned out to be our last anniversary, however, we had lunch at a place she had read about and wanted to try – Sushi Marquee. It lived up to her expectations. Little could we imagine that it would be our last anniversary together.

A few anniversary celebrations through the years are particularly memorable to me:

• # 10 (1986) – California, here we come!
  • We had moved to Denver at the end of August 1977, just a week before our 1st anniversary. As we prepared to celebrate # 10, we had no idea that we were in our final year in Denver; Joanna’s job with Mobil Oil, which had moved us from Oklahoma to Colorado in ’77, would move us to Texas in August ’87, just before # 11.
  • We celebrated # 10 with a trip to California. It was a family trip, as we were now a full-fledged two-child family. Alison was 4½ (well, 4¾, to be accurate), and Travis was 9 months. We arranged with my parents that they would fly to LA from Austin; we would meet them and rent a van to accommodate all of us. Grandma and Granddaddy had a wonderful time spoiling the grandkids.
  • Disneyland, San Diego (including Sea World), then a drive up the coast to San Francisco (passing – but not stopping at – the Hearst Castle along the way).
    

    1986, California: Disneyland with the kids

  • Oh yes, it was handy to have my parents along, too, for occasional babysitting. The night before our anniversary, Joanna and I attended a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in Burbank, while Grandma and Granddaddy took care of the kids in their hotel room. Guests that night were humorist Lewis Grizzard and singer George Benson. I remember from our vantage point up in those bleachers, during the monologue, being surprised to see a prominent bald spot on the top of Johnny’s head – the kind of thing you do NOT see at home! (It wasn’t too many years before I began sporting one of my own – of which I was blissfully unaware until Alison walked into my study one day as I was standing and looking down at some papers on my desk. “Daddy!” she exclaimed. “You’re going bald!” Thanks a lot, daughter!)

• #20 (1996) – California again, but without the kids this time
  • I don’t have a “poker face” – just ask my old OBU buddies who used to take my money during our weekly poker games in Brotherhood Dorm! I could practically never surprise Joanna; my face would tell everything. However, there were a couple of times I was able to pull off a surprise. One was for her 60th birthday in 2013, when I arranged a party at her/our favorite Chinese restaurant, JS Chen’s in Plano; when she walked into that back party room at JS Chen’s and saw a gathering of family and friends yelling “Happy birthday,” it took her a full minute to process just what was going on here!
  • This one in 1996 took a lot of planning and scheming. Not only would I have to keep a secret; so would a 14-year-old girl (Alison) and a 10-year-old boy (Travis). I arranged a trip to San Francisco through a travel agent, picked out the hotel from a brochure, etc. Then I arranged with the parents of one of Alison’s best friends to keep her over the weekend, and did the same with the parents of one of Travis’s best buddies. So it would be a vacation for the whole family – only the kids’ “vacation” would be from Mom & Dad, four days – all expenses paid, lol – spent with a good friend.
  • When we moved to Texas in ’87, I had resigned from my management position with Mountain Bell in Denver and received what was euphemistically called “the Baby Boomer buyout,” aimed at downsizing by removing management personnel around my age from the payroll – it offered a full year’s salary plus aid in beginning a second career. It came at the perfect time, just as Mobil was transferring its Denver office to Dallas. Our plan was for me to stay home for a few years and take care of our two young kids, get them to school, etc. But in 1990, I got the opportunity to go to work part-time as a technical editor, a job that would allow me to work from home almost exclusively (I was ahead of my time, lol). In the summer of 1996, I picked up any additional hours I could from some of our other offices around the country, enabling me to fully pay for the 20th anniversary trip to San Francisco that I was planning.
  • Then, the day before we were supposed to leave for San Francisco, I came up with the cheesiest way possible to let Joanna in on the secret  – I played a video I had prepared, in which I acted the role of a game show (“Jeopardy,” of course) announcer, dramatically announcing the “gifts” won by our “contestants,” culminating with Joanna’s four-day trip to San Francisco with her husband (some prize, huh?). Just as she would at her birthday party 16½ years later, Joanna took a moment to process what was happening, then gave me a euphoric hug. The kids and I had a wonderful time with this surprise, especially seeing first the puzzlement on Joanna’s face, then the big smile of excitement (followed by tears).
  • Click here to view the video of “the big reveal.” Believe me, it’s priceless, mainly for Joanna’s beautiful reaction . . . if you don’t read another word in this post, please view the video – it’s just over six minutes long. If you loved Joanna, you’ll love seeing the happiness on her face and in her voice.
  • Alas, as the poet Robert Burns wrote in his classic, To a Mouse, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley.” Burns knew whereof he spoke! It turns out that San Francisco is not the only California city with a Fisherman’s Wharf. I had picked a hotel from the travel agency’s catalog, a hotel that was advertised as being near Fisherman’s Wharf. Our flight got into SF a little after midnight. By the time we got our luggage and our rental car, it was after 1 a.m. We drove down by Fisherman’s Wharf but couldn’t find the street of the hotel. Finally, I stopped at a pay phone (those were the days!) and called the hotel. Turns out there’s a Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterrey, about 2 hours south of San Francisco, and that’s where our hotel was! We were fortunate to find a hotel nearby with a vacancy and turned in for the night. The next morning, I called the travel agent in Plano, gave her holy hell I’m sure, and got a refund of the money we’d spent with them on a hotel. (After all, she knew I was going to San Francisco; it was her job to check things like this.) You tried to warn me, Robert Burns, didn’t you? I should have paid closer attention in those English classes!
  • Regardless of the rocky start, we had a wonderful four days together in the city by the Bay.
    

    1996, San Francisco: By the beautiful Pacific Ocean

    Among other things:

    • We both love seafood, and we ate plenty of it.
    • We toured Ghirardelli’s (and, of course, picked up some chocolate to take home).
    • Ate Sunday brunch at The Cliff House.
    • Took the ferry to Alcatraz.

• #30 (2006) – San Antonio
  • For our 30th anniversary, we took Travis, and Alison and her new (married just over a year at this point) husband, Adam, to San Antonio. There we met up with my cousin, Lawana Geren, who lives there. It was the usual San Antonio touristy stuff – the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and great food, especially Tex-Mex.
    

    2006, San Antonio: celebrating our 30th anniversary

• #40 (2016) – first Shawnee, then New England
  • • Our 40th anniversary was on a Sunday, so I proposed driving up to Shawnee, OK, and worshipping at University Baptist Church, where we said our vows to each other 40 years earlier to the day. My friend Steve Dominy – whom I had known in Texas (he was a strong supporter of Texas Baptists Committed, which I served as executive director at that time) – was pastor of University by this time. Following the worship service, Steve took a photo of Joanna and me standing on the same chancel where we had stood 40 years earlier and answered “I do” to the questions posed by my Daddy, who performed our wedding ceremony.
  

  2016, Shawnee: 40th anniversary at UBC

  • After leaving the church, we met my best friend, Bob Morris, and his wife, Emily, for lunch. They live in Oklahoma City, but Bob grew up in Shawnee. Bob had been best man in our wedding, so it was very special to get to have lunch with him and Emily on this 40th anniversary. After lunch, we drove around Shawnee a little with Bob and Emily. We drove over to the old Southwestern Bell building, where Bob and I had met when we both started work there in March 1974; Joanna took a picture of Bob and me standing in the parking lot where we used to stand and talk politics (Watergate was the hot topic back then) for an hour or two after getting off work.
    

    2016, Shawnee: At lunch with our friends Bob and Emily Morris; Bob was best man in our wedding in 1976.

    • After saying goodbye to Bob and Emily, Joanna and I walked around the OBU campus and reminisced about our courting days when we were OBU students. I took a picture of Joanna at the University Center reception desk where she once worked for Eunice Short, the UC director (and international students liaison – Miss Short is the one who picked up Joanna at the airport when she arrived in OKC from Hong Kong). One day, Miss Short called Joanna into her office and introduced her to a woman who would be performing at a dinner there that night – Carol Channing. Joanna, having grown up in Hong Kong, had no idea who Carol Channing was. But she soon learned; over the years, as she saw Channing perform on TV, her excitement grew about having met her, especially in the 1990s when Joanna and I saw Carol Channing on stage in Hello, Dolly, at the Fair Park Music Hall in Dallas.
    • We had a wonderful time walking around that campus on our 40th anniversary and reliving those times when we were just getting to know each other – and falling in love.
  • The following week, we took the trip I had wanted ever since we got married. We flew to Portland, Maine, rented a car, and spent the next week driving through New England. We had a wonderful week, filled with good food, historic sights, and occasional renewing of old friendships. Here are just a few highlights from that trip:
    • We ate lobster in Maine.
    • In Boston, we took in a Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park (where I ate a $14 lobster roll that was worth every penny – starting to see a pattern?) and went to the JFK library/museum.
      

      2016, New England trip: At Fenway Park in Boston, watching the Red Sox play the Yankees

    • In Lexington, MA, we had dinner at the house of our dear friends Daniel and Wendy Lee (natives, like Joanna, of Hong Kong), whom we had known as students at OBU back in the day, and met their son, Dan.
      

      2016, New England trip: With our friends, from OBU days, Daniel & Wendy Lee, at their home in Lexington, MA

      

      2016, New England trip: At the Marconi Wireless Station site in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts

    • In Providence, RI, we took a quick tour of The First Baptist Church in America (and Joanna took a picture of me standing behind the pulpit), as well as the Roger Williams National Memorial, commemorating the founder of Rhode Island AND that first Baptist Church, and the State Capitol, both just down the street from the church.
    • In Washington, DC, we:
      • Visited the office of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, where we visited with the staff, most of whom are good friends of mine. Brent Walker, then BJC executive director, showed us where our names appear on the Jefferson Wall commemorating the separation of church and state (we had donated to the establishment of the Center for Religious Liberty there a few years earlier) and took our pictures in front of it; then we had lunch with Brent – who was preparing to retire at the end of the year – at the Senate Cafeteria (yes, THAT Senate) across the street.
      • Toured the U.S. Capitol building.
      • Took a photo of Joanna in front of the White House.

And I could go on and on – and I usually do. But these are just a few highlights from the 44 anniversaries we celebrated together. Ours was truly a marriage made in Heaven . . . and that’s where she celebrates today while I’m still earthbound (for now).

My 14 previous blog tributes to Joanna since her passing on February 14, 2021:

8/14/22 – A year-and-a-half later: Missing Joanna more than ever
1/29/22 – One year ago – Joanna & I went out to eat together; then came the phone call that changed our lives
1/14/22 – 11 months of missing Joanna . . . my thoughts go back to another January, 49 years ago
12/14/21 – Ten months after Joanna’s passing . . . music, memories, and lumps in the throat
12/1/21 – 12/1/81, a great day as we became parents for the first time . . . Alison turns 40!
11/14/21 – Journeying with Joanna . . . Photo memories from a half-century (almost) of our travels together
9/14/21 – Pictures, pictures, pictures . . . remembering my wonderful trip with Joanna to Hong Kong, Beijing, and Macao 10 years ago this week
9/4/21 – Joanna and I were married 45 years ago today . . . Missing her and celebrating her
8/14/21 – Six months after Joanna’s passing . . . remembering her humor and all that she meant to me
7/14/21 – Five months after Joanna’s passing . . . remembering the lively soul who brought us joy
6/14/21 – Four months after Joanna’s passing . . . a few personal reflections
3/19/21 – Joanna spoke out against demeaning racial slurs and the fears they caused her as an Asian-American
2/22/21 – How Joanna and I got together . . . the beginning of our love story
2/19/21 – The painful journey that took the love of my life, Joanna . . . to the great heavenly banquet