Ginger and I will celebrate 60 years of marriage this month, but it’s only our 15th anniversary.

Yep. We were married on Leap Day in 1964, so we’ve had real anniversaries only every four years. And the most frequent response to that: So you only have to buy a present every four years?

And the second most frequent response: Why did you pick Leap Day? Well, we wanted a Saturday near the end of February, and the church we wanted was available — maybe because no one else had chosen February 29.

Regarding the celebration, we’ve also adopted February 28 as a secondary date, so on leap years we have two days in which to celebrate. (Or on an adjacent weekend in our working years.) The presents continued every year, usually a joint gift to one another, something for our home. This year we’ll take a trip.

People haven’t asked what our secret is, but my answer would be sharing.

We’ve shared goals and dreams, two responsible daughters, three grandchildren, a standard size bed — and one cell phone and one email address. We also have been geographically independent of our parents, never living within 300 miles of our original homes in Seattle.

We spent the first six years of our marriage in Sitka and Anchorage, Alaska, then moved to Central Oregon in 1969 when I was separated from the U.S. Navy.

We parlayed an investment in a 10×50 singlewide house trailer into a down payment on a three-bedroom, one-bath home in Bend, a large older home outside of La Grande, and a new home in Redmond in 1975 as I shuttled from one newspaper job to another within the WesCom corporation.

We weren’t wealthy, but we afforded ourselves the luxury of Ginger being a stay-at-home mother before our daughters entered school. We haven’t owned many expensive toys, nor become snowbirds. But we planned well for retirement and find ways to escape during colder weather. We love and respect each other. We’ve been relatively healthy, but haven’t escaped the trauma of recent surgeries. We’ve been each other’s caregiver.

We make a point of trying to keep up on the news locally and far away. We vote in every election, and don’t question the results, although we’re not always happy with those results.

The Redmond City Council is placing a couple of measures on the May 21 ballot that we’ll oppose. One issue would double the mayor’s term from two to four years, and limit each councilor and the mayor to two terms.

I’m not against the four-year term for the mayor, but I don’t believe a lack of term limits is a problem here.

In the U.S. Congress, yes. In Redmond, Oregon, no.

Sometimes the wisdom accrued by councilors and the practical history they can apply to future decisions are invaluable.

Jay Patrick’s service on the council is a prime example. So we don’t lose the option of that seniority, I’ll vote against the two-pronged measure.

The other measure would prohibit more than one member of a household from serving on the council at the same time. That’s discrimination.

Just because our current mayor had disputes with the previous mayor and his councilor-wife doesn’t mean we have to electorally preclude a repeat of that unlikely situation.

Happy Leap Year.