Another Goodbye

We said goodbye this month to the lovely bride in this photo, who was marrying my mother's brother "Bud," to become my Auntie Barbara. I remember the wedding because I was the flower girl, a job I took very seriously.

There were other relatives who were in the bridal party. Uncle Orin.

Aunt Marilyn.

And Uncle Jim.

Marilyn and Orin are my mother's siblings. Jim is my father's brother. As in many rural areas, everyone knew each other; the families didn't meet for the first time at a wedding as they often do now. Uncle Jim's wife, Aunt Beth, and Aunty Barbara had grown up together in a small farming community north of Sacramento.

They didn't remain farmers. Jim and Beth moved to the suburbs, where Jim worked at the fire department as a mechanic. (Remember this tidbit of information for future use.) Bud and Barbara eventually moved to a mountain community where he worked as a Highway Patrolman.

They did remain friends, though. Theirs was the last generation, I think, that was able to retire early enough to spend lots of great years traveling together in their motor homes and truly enjoying their lives.

In my generation there are too many people who find themselves having to work until they die or barely have enough to get along. There are others who would be doing fine except they still need to support grown-up, well-educated kids who can't find decent jobs. By decent, I mean jobs that pay more than minimum wage, have even a bare minimum of benefits, and don't make them constantly subject to being laid off... jobs that give them tools to build a life on, like previous generations did.

That's another goodbye.