The Fleur De Lis Summer-End Edition 2016 | Page 15

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Interviewer: Wow! How did you know so quickly that was the right person for you?

Nora: How did he know I was the right person? [laughs] Well that’s something I don’t know. I guess that’s what they call love at first sight. I wasn’t scared. I guess I should’ve been, but he was so good to me. He was handsome. He took me to meet his mother and his sister; his father had passed away.Within just a few days, we got married, and I went back to Rhode Island with him. He served in the military with me living on the base, and I never had any trouble at all. He was just wonderful. I would never do that again I don’t think. I don’t know if we would work out now, back then I couldn’t think.

Interviewer: You were in love!

Mrs. Taylor: [Laughs] Well, he definitely was. I loved him, too and decided to trust him that it could work between us. It’s my love story. Love at first sight. Love at first sight, and it worked out wonderful for 70 years.

HER BEST RELATIONSHIP ADVICE SHE’S RECEIVED

Interviewer: Okay. So what is the best relationship advice you have ever received? Maybe from your grandmother or your mother — did they ever tell you anything that maybe just stuck with you?

Mrs. Taylor: I remember my mother telling me if you start to feel an argument coming on, keep your mouth shut. I thought that was pretty good advice. That way you won’t say anything in the heat of the moment.

Interviewer: That sounds like pretty good advice.

Mrs. Taylor: Pretty good advice for sure! It’s true: If you don’t say anything, then you don’t have anything to regret. Sometimes it’s easy and quick to think of something to say back when you’re mad, but you may wish you hadn’t said it later.

Interviewer: You’re right. Saying something you can’t take back can last for a while, but when you’re mad it can come and go in minutes.

Mrs. Taylor: Yeah. I think my mother was telling me not to be mean. My husband and I never really had a mean argument.

Interviewer: Wow! After seventy years?

Mrs. Taylor: [Nods] Seventy years. We only knew each other eleven days before we were married.

Interviewer: So, do you have any advice you would give maybe a newlywed, someone who is just starting out?

Mrs. Taylor: One of the main things is that when you’re young you say, “I think I’m perfect now and I’m going to marry somebody. Well I’ll expect that person to be perfect.” No. He’s not perfect because you’re not perfect. He’s got his faults, his faults might be different than your faults. Am I right?

Interviewer: Absolutely.

Mrs. Taylor: But we have to look over another person’s faults because I may brush my teeth before I go to bed, but he may not brush his teeth before he goes to bed. That shouldn’t make us fall out with each other. But sometimes it does. Maybe not over a toothbrush, but over something else, a little petty thing. As hard as we can work for a lifetime, we can still not make your mate perfect. You know what I mean? He or she’s not going to be perfect. It may take a lifetime and you never change somebody, you know?

Interviewer: Absolutely! So the advice that you would give people is just realize that no one’s perfect?

Mrs. Taylor: Mm-hmm [nods]It’s like I said, I didn’t worry about a lot of things that my husband liked and I didn’t like. To heck with it! You know? It’s because he parted his hair one way and I parted mine the other, but I didn’t fuss at him. He had the toothpaste worked at the bottom; I didn’t worry about it. When it made it all the way to the top, I’d tell him go buy a new tube. Don’t get upset over something like that. But some people do, you know?

Interviewer: That’s funny. That’s so funny I laugh because my husband and I … There are two different types of people. One, the folks that will take the toothpaste tube and they’ll push it all the way to the top and it’s nice and straight. And the other, they’ll just squeeze it.

Mrs. Taylor: I’m the one that squeezes it.

Interviewer: Oh, I’m a squeezer too! My husband is so nice and neat with his toothpaste, and he likes to make sure that it’s straight and smooth, and I’m just a squeezer. [laughs] Probably toothpaste is still in the tube but I already just prefer to move on to another tube.

Mrs. Taylor: I do the same thing. But who cares? You