40 Years

The following is personal in nature and not specifically witness, as are my usual posts. – Roger + 

It was forty years ago tonight, December 6, 1974, that we celebrated as our first date. It was an anniversary perhaps more important in our memories than a wedding day many months latter in 1976.

We were drawn together socially by a love of theatre and music. She was a dancer and as a musician I had volunteered to take on the musical score of Applause at TNT in Niles, Ohio. In years since I continue to have many friends and fond memories from that place and those times.

Rebecca Ann Rice Harned touched many lives at TNT and in her work as a physical therapist at Trumbull Memorial Hospital & Warren General Hospital (now St. Joseph’s), Rebound Inc. (Gallatin TN), Sunland and Tachechale (Gainesville FL). Further, Becky was loved for her work in several school systems where she worked along side many others with handicapped children: Lakeview H.S., Cortland, Ohio (where she was instrumental in establishing handicapped sports for Trumbull County Schools and the handicapped exercise playground at Lakeview Middle School; Palm Beach County FL schools and Putnam County FL Schools. All these works wonderfully done for the Lord and love of others.

December 6, 1974, we went Christmas shopping at Eastwood Mall (after a practice, I think) to find child-size jeans (not yet popular, then) for my niece Terri. We went out dancing in Youngstown and then just kept going out and getting to know each other. I insisted on driving her through a predicted snow storm to Hamilton Ohio to her parents for Christmas. A mutual friend from TNT would drive us and others the next winter through a driving snow storm to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to see Yul Brenner in Ulysses (that would be ‘The King & I,’ Yul Brenner, to you non-theatre types). These fond memories of times spent together with others remain even to this day.

NO vocation and NO avocation (like theatre or music or dancing or sports) is more important than God. Yet Becky and I both tried as best as we could to have Jesus as Lord in our life and evident in our attitudes toward others. We were one, true; but we were also one with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Becky was raised Roman Catholic, I was raised in the Methodist Church and we were married at Christ Episcopal Church in Warren Ohio. I suppose the separate stories of our faith in Jesus Christ are as complex as any, but our witness of love to others was and is always that God’s love in Christ must be evident in our love for others.