Susan Writes

Aunt Anne would be proud – at least, I think she would.  Husband and I are celebrating our anniversary this week and I’ve tried to follow her advice.  When we married, Aunt Anne gave me a card file box filled with 3 x 5 cards.  On the first card, she wrote “Recipes – Family Favorites and Other Things.”  There wasn’t one single recipe for food.  “Someone who likes to cook will have to fill out all those blank cards,” she told me.  Aunt Anne, really my great aunt, shared other things.

How to live on a budget – Have it printed on the rug.

How to avoid in-law trouble – Stay away from them.  But remember that your mother-in-law and father-in-law spent a whole lot of time and money to produce that man and they are handing over the finished product to you —- for free!  Be kind to them.  In twenty-some short years you might be a mother-in-law.  (It was 27 years.)

Aunt Anne used two cards, front and back, to write about Money and Marriage.  Let’s face it girls, it’s still a man’s world!  (This year was 1969.)  Oh, we get jobs and sometimes make more than the men.  We vote.  We stick our little pinkies in the world affairs, but we still rock the cradle.  In the biological process of filling that cradle, we’re just as old fashioned as Grandma.  For a time, we are dependent.  So it might be a good idea to know how Grandma managed money long before the female executive with the fat salary came along.

Grandma raised chickens, sold cream, taught music, sewed, and resorted to trickery.  She padded the household accounts, filled his wine cup, then raided his pockets, and she had the vapors.  Now there was a malady worth money!

Grandma swooned, looked fragile and clung to Grandpa’s big strong hand.  All the while sending out messages with her fluttering eyelids that penetrated the depth of his protective instinct.  Grandma just wasn’t able to make that kettle of soap nor do the week’s wash so Grandpa hired it done.

This was not the devious trick that it sounds.  Grandpa felt ten feet tall, with a large chest expansion and everybody was happy.  Some variation of this theme has been used thru the ages.  Applied with discretion, it will rate a washer and dryer to this day.

Aunt Anne might not have liked to spend time in the kitchen, but she knew the importance of putting food on the table.  Tis’ said, she wrote, that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  There are times it seems like the long way around.

And she gave me a recipe entitled How to Hold Your Man.  Tie Him!  Tie him with a mixture of kindness, consideration, honesty, truthfulness.  Leaven with common sense.  Spice with a pinch of temper and a good argument now and then.  Frost with lots of hugs and kisses.

So here I am, 44 years later, still happily married to Husband and relishing Aunt Anne’s recipes.  There’s one bit of advice that’s as difficult to master as it was as a newlywed.  She stated it simple and straightforward.  How to avoid a fuss with your husband – Shut your mouth.

Filed under: Anniversary | Tagged: advice for marriage, anniversary, Aunt Anne, recipes |