My Parent's Wedding Anniversary In This Sunday's Newsday

My first post of the new year is actually not about Ghostbusters. This is a personal post, and one that won't even be of much use to the large percentage of you who live outside of the New York area, but it's something that I'm proud of, and wanted to make a special mention of it.

My parents, Linda & Joel Rudoff, celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary this past Tuesday. Their anniversary will be announced in the LI Life section of the Sunday January 2nd issue of Newsday. That's tomorrow, for those of you playing along at home. Although the newspaper is available on Long Island and in the City, I think the LI Life section might only be in the Long Island edition. I mean, that would certainly make sense given the name of the section.

Anyway, I'm very proud that my parents have made it this long, especially given the run of bad health they've both had these past two years. I know that they won't make it another 35 years, but I'm wishing them all the best to make it to the big 50th anniversary.

Newsday already published the announcement on their website on December 27, 2010 at 2:23 PM, correctly listed under Nassau County anniversaries, and also incorrectly under Suffolk County anniversaries, but without the photograph that should be published in tomorrow's paper.

35th
LINDA AND JOEL RUDOFF of East Rockaway were married Dec. 28, 1975. Linda is a retired home health care nurse, and Joel is a retired custodian at Nassau County Medical Center. They have two children.

[UPDATE - 1/2/2011]
Here's a scan of the anniversary announcement from today's newspaper. The photo isn't the greatest because I didn't have the best photo of them available to submit.


[UPDATE - 2/6/2011]
Newsday also owns the local This Week's Pennysaver publication, which is a free newspaper consisting mostly of advertisements. In the February 5, 2011 Lynbrook Edition, on page 6, my parent's anniversary announcement was reprinted in the "Your Special Occasions" section. The text is exactly the same as what was in Newsday, but the photo is now in black and white and has been zoomed-in a little bit. Neither my parents nor myself had any idea that the anniversary announcement was going to be republished in the Pennysaver, so it came as a great surprise when we all looked through it today. Thank goodness we didn't throw it out sight unseen, like I'm sure some people do.

On a somewhat related note, searching Newsday.com for my last name shows me that they have my sister Michelle listed as part of the East Rockaway High School Class of 2003 and that there's a monetary music award named after me: the Paul Rudoff Award (worth $750). Actually, it's not named after me, but someone with the exact same name - and the spelling of my last name isn't that common - who was the founding conductor of the Island Senior Symphony. I believe I know of this other Paul Rudoff. He's probably the guy I saw in the obituaries many years ago. Let me tell you, it can really scare the hell out of you to see your name in big bold letters in the obituary section of the newspaper. It's even scarier when you consider that he came from Westbury, NY and I grew up in Westbury, NY; and (from what I've read) he contributed in some manner to the private elementary school that I used to attend. It's a real shame that we never met when he was alive. It's even more of a shame that I can't win the monetary award that bears my name.