The other night, our two sons and our daughter-in-law took us out for dinner to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary.   It was a beautiful, not-humid-by-local standards, mid-summer evening, and we ate outside at a restaurant we all like.

After we got up to date on our son Seth’s life (he had just flown in from a month in Brazil), the kids asked us for the secret of our long happy marriage. My immediate response was “our amazing children”.

But they wanted more.

For one thing, we’ve always liked many of the same things—classical music, traveling by bicycle, cooking, going to movies. In our whole marriage I remember only one bitter disagreement—it was something about the children, but I forget what—that caused me to stop in the middle of a morning run with Peter and sulk for the rest of the day.

We shared much of the work. When a child was sick, Peter would stay home if it wasn’t a teaching day for him, and I would stay home if it was.

The pride we take in each other’s accomplishments was another reason for our successful marriage. But most of all, we were just plain lucky. We lived in good times, we had good careers and wonderful friends.

The fifty years went by way too fast. Given the chance, I’d live them all over again.