BY MAGGIE BEAMGUARD
Insider Editor
Bud and Liz Sales met on Dec. 31 in 1962 on a New Year’s Eve blind date at the Naval Officers Club. Bud’s ship had just returned from the Cuban Missile crisis.
“I found the most beautiful Southern girl you could imagine,” Bud says. His ship, the USS Enterprise, soon left for an eight-month deployment to the Mediterranean. “We were in love but hardly knew each other except through letters,” Bud says.
The couple married in Portsmouth, Virginia on Nov. 16, 1963. They were enjoying their honeymoon in Pompano Beach, Florida when the world came to a full stop on Nov. 22, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Many people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on that day. The newlyweds were enjoying Sea World when the news spreading around the world reached them. The Holiday Inn put a TV out by the pool so everyone could watch what was going on in Dallas and Washington.
The surreal honeymoon did not cast a shadow over their partnership.
“It’s no secret how we have had 60 happy years,” Bud says. “Love and mutual respect and we have lived by the motto, ‘Never go to bed angry.’”
They have three children who are spread from Connecticut to Utah, three grandsons and two step-grandsons.
“We feel blessed far beyond what we should have been given.” Bud says. “While we have never been given everything we have asked for, we have received everything we have needed.”
Contact Maggie Beamguard at maggie@thepilot.com.
